Running From The Demons
by SASundance
Summary: Multi-chapter 1st story in a trilogy. A simple injury is the catalyst for an assault which impact on every facet of Tony's life. Some very disturbing and long repressed secrets from his childhood resurface, overwhelming him. The past and the present collide and forever change his life in ways that will test his resilience and push him beyond his breaking point. Will he recover?
1. Chapter 1

Setting: Mid season six so possible spoilers up to this point

Genre: Angst/hurt

Pairing: Tony-centric/ OC Sonata/ Abby and supporting role from remainder of Team Gibbs

Rating: M

Disclaimer: I don't own them and I don't profit from them.

Warning: This story deals with sexual assault. While this story attempts to deal with issues surrounding the topic as sensitively as possible, it may upset some individuals. It is definitely not my intention to make light of this issue in any way or use it as a creative device for the sake of the story. On the contrary, my goal in writing this piece, indeed the trilogy, has been to use fiction as a means of developing a hopefully intelligent dialogue about sexual assault involving a grou of survivors that can be frequently isolated. Please don't read this if you think you may be affected by the subject matter. My intention is to raise awareness and hopefully, generate debate. This story is NOT suitable for children. A final warning that it also deals with grief, loss and mental illness.

A/N this is my new multi chapter story and is the first in a trilogy. This story is complete and I will be posting chapters at regular intervals once it has been lovingly nurtured by a Beta Reader. Hope you enjoy it!

**Running from the Demons**

Prologue

The whole hell in a hand-basket nightmare kicked off with such a simple injury. In the grand scheme of things, a couple of damaged tendons and some damaged nerves in his hand, even if they required surgery to repair it, was just so inconsequential, when stacked up against his myriad of injuries and afflictions over the years. Being poisoned, shot, stabbed, beaten and infected by the pneumonic plague were all potentially life ending scenarios. Yet his simple, almost insignificant mishap was destined to shake him to his very core. It would rip his life and psychological wellbeing asunder in a way that was beyond his comprehension or indeed his faith in being able to survive intact.

It revealed things which horrified him about himself and changed his future irrevocably. Possibly the worst thing, as far as he was concerned, was that someone innocent would be forever scarred by the whole damned mess. Someone, who would become a pivotal part of his universe.

A/N Fear not, I am posting the first chapter momentarily, SASundance


	2. Chapter 2

Warning: This story involves sexual assault, grief, loss and mental disease. Please don't read if any of these topics may disturb you.

Rating: M for later chapters

Chapter One: Talk to the Hand

He was running! Special Agent Tony DiNozzo had started out sprinting as his quarry ducked and weaved between the vehicles in the car park before they headed out onto the streets, where the pursuit settled down into an endurance race of sorts. The dirt bag was either part greyhound or else he had been sampling the merchandise, Tony chortled as he found his stride.

He was chasing down yet another perp they suspected of dealing drugs to his fellow Marines. According to their investigation, Private First Class Jack McClosky was selling amphetamines to his fellow Marines at the Navy Yard. Although Team Gibbs was confident that McClosky was only a mid level dealer within the amphetamine ring, they wanted to crack him and then use him to bring down the entire group, including the kingpins.

PFC McClosky had been spotted at one of his favourite watering holes and the team had been trying to apprehend him. He was somehow alerted to their presence in the bar, hence his decision to run and they all set off in pursuit. Gibbs and McGee followed in the car and Ziva and Tony on foot. Gibbs'bad knee made long drawn out pursuits problematic and McGee was also not as proficient at long distant running as his two partners. Although Ziva regularly ran over five miles each days and was very fit, Tony with his long legs, athletics background and his absolute thrill of the chase, which he always experienced when running down a suspect, meant that he soon drew ahead.

He soon settled into his long distance rhythm and felt the familiar burn before the endorphins kicked in. As he ran he wondered to himself if his leg hadn't been busted by his then arch nemesis Brad Pitt - the one time hero of the Michigan Wolverines - if he would have had a shot as a professional long distance runner rather than the football or basket ball player that everyone expected. Of course it could never measure up to the status of the high profile team sports, it would nevertheless, have had its compensations Even though he loved being part of a team and craved human contact and interaction, a part of him was still incredibly private and he found the solitary nature of running to be a soothing balm to his soul.

Of course he has been running ever since he was a small boy, running away really. Some would say he is still running away as an adult, although he has curbed this tendency somewhat, at least professionally. He has been with NCIS and on Team Gibbs for almost eight years now. He almost fled a few years ago when the debacle over Jeanne Benoit crushed his spirit and broke his heart; then again there was the whole mess after Jenny Shepard's death and his banishment to solitary by his new boss who decided to punish him. Somehow though he managed to quell his typical impulse to pack everything in his car and bolt. Though it had been torture the last couple of years, he was finally coming to terms with it all and learning to put it behind him. At least he thought he was.

Tony still loved to run, even though now it was an integral part of his bid to stay fit and keep his scarred lungs functioning well enough for him to pass his regular physicals; it didn't hurt that running was a cool way to meet potential dates too. Although with his crazy work schedule, most of the time he did his running late at night, as a way of relieving stress and helping to chase away some of the demons that overwhelmed him and invaded his dreams.

To be honest, these days he was still pretty chary about dating. After experiencing a proper long term relationship for the first time in his life with Jeanne, he was no longer interested in shallow hook ups but at the same time he was terrified of getting his heart ripped apart again. It meant that while he went through the motions and continued to flirt outrageously and got plenty of phone numbers and propositions, he rarely made any attempts to follow through. To outsiders it appeared to be business as usual for the suave playboy agent but Tony was a skilled undercover operative, with no wish to advertise his soft underbelly to the world.

Most of all when it came to running, Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo relished the thrill of the chase; almost nothing else could come close to the high he experienced in a good chase and take down of a suspect. One of his many enemies had sneeringly described him once as a 'White Hat' - someone who was on the side of the angels and while it wasn't meant to be a compliment, it was nonetheless an accurate description of why he chose a career in law enforcement, over working in his father's business empire. A smirk escaped his lips as he realized his true motivation; running down dirt bags was fun!

Tony concluded that destiny sure had a bitching sense of humour, as he continued the pursuit with his usual joie de vivre and a mile wide grin. He focused on running down the perp who was misguided enough to think he could get one up on the premier Major Crime Response Team. How ironic was it that the guy that shattered his dreams of playing professional sports during his senior year of college, also ended up saving his life when Tony was drowning with pneumonia? This, after he was infected with the plague by a brain cancer addled, former hippy chick, turned vigilante mom bent on obtaining justice for a nonexistent crime before she died. Brad had made it possible for him to continue working in his second career in law enforcement. that had come to be as much a part of his existence as oxygen was to his weakened lungs.

Who would have thought that Brad Pitt, the doctor not the actor, would become one of his trusted buddies? He continued to survey his environment and watch his quarry trying to evade him; he was aware of the possibility that McClosky may have accomplices nearby and he needed to be on his game as well as keep an eye on his partner's six too. He didn't have a doubt that Officer David was more than capable of looking after herself and didn't need baby -sitting.

Ziva was highly trained in hand- to-hand combat and proficient with a variety of weapons, but they were still partners and partners looked out for each other whether they need it or not. Ziva never seemed to get that. It was what Tony did for those people he counted as his family and he considered Ziva to be family. He simply wasn't capable of not watching his team mates sixes 'even when they weren't on duty; even if they sometimes accused him of being nosey and interfering. Not looking out for his team simply wasn't an option for him. It was like asking him not to breathe.

'Despite the fact that he was relishing the chase and challenges that come with pursuing a suspect, he was hyper vigilant to possible threats to himself, his partner or innocent bystanders. It was probably due to his experience and awareness, that he managed to avoid a more serious injury as the long pursuit reached its climax. As he approached the corner of a building that led to a darken alleyway, he skidded to a gentle jog as he inched his way around the corner, with his Sig un-holstered, in case it should it be required. At first he thought that he had been mistaken in suspecting an ambush, before he detected a shadow out of the corner of his eyes. He turned, to see McClosky coming at him with a piece of metal swinging at his head. As he ducked out of the way, Tony reflexively threw up his hand to try and grab McClosky's hand and force the jagged metal strip out of his grasp. He missed McClosky's wrist but caught the end of the metal strip instead.

Dimly he realised that his upper palm and fingers of his right hand, were sliced open but the adrenaline rush he was experiencing meant that he was feeling no pain. Without missing a step he kicked the Marine's legs out from under him while McClosky was on the follow-through from the upswing of his attempt to take off his head. Tony, though a highly trained Federal Agent who had had the additional benefit of his former Marine boss's tutelage in hand to hand combat, was under no illusions about the folly of underestimating a Marine. He decided to play hard and dirty.

As he caught the PFC unbalanced and slightly vulnerable, he pounced and as the Marine was on the way down, Tony was a heart beat behind him, diving on top of him as he fell, already grabbing for his cuffs with one hand. The other hand was already administering what he teased Ziva by calling it the Vulcan Death Grip, but was in fact a nerve block technique, that the former Mossad agent had shown her team mates.

His legs were prepared to restraint the Marine's legs to prevent him using them as a weapon but his caution proved unnecessary, this time around. Tony's enthusiastic leap upon his assailant contributed to the PFCs forward momentum and being a tall muscular guy, DiNozzo's additional weight caused McClosky's head to strike the ground with sufficient force, to render him out for the count. Well at least until backup arrived in the form of a barely puffing Officer David, followed shortly after by a squeal of brakes and the appearance of the remainder of Team Gibbs, including their equally esteemed and feared team leader Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

He greeted his two agents with a glare and a terse " What took you so long DiNozzo, David? You two out for a Sunday stroll or something?"

Tony merely grinned triumphantly at his boss, refusing to be cowered by his cutting remarks although his partner was less composed. A slight flash of irritation flickered across her face, before Ziva once again arranged her features into the impassive countenance that she habitually wore to hide her emotions from others. The look was so brief, that someone who didn't know her well, would have undoubtedly missed it. Then the final member of the team, Timothy McGee arrived and noticed that Tony's body language was somehow off, despite his successful take-down. He took in the steady drip of blood coming from DiNozzo's shooting hand.

"Tony, your hand is bleeding. Are you okay?" McGee inquired.

"Naw. I'm fine Probie; I can't even feel it," mumbled Tony who remembered that his palm had been sliced across.

As the adrenaline began to subside, he began to surreptitiously examine it while trying to remain outwardly cool. Ziva, also realising it was his shooting hand grabbed it and demanded that he straighten his fingers. As he tried to straighten his partially curled fingers, he noticed with a stab of dread that he wasn't able to move them enough to straighten them and the pain was increasing. Although in terms of pain, he wasn't too worried; he was however concerned about possible tendon damage to his hand. As a former elite college athlete, he knew about tendons, ligaments, muscles and nerves and he knew that his simple injury could be far more serious than a broken bone or a gunshot wound.

Although he continued to proclaim his ubiquitous fine-ness to his team mates, underneath the mask that was Very Special Agent DiNozzo, Tony was a deeply worried guy. He knew he needed to get his hand checked out as soon as possible. Just as he, as a college athletic hero had always sought out the best orthopaedic specialists when he had injuries, Tony knew he needed a top notch hand surgeon to examine his hand. His hand was intrinsic to his identity as a federal agent. Without full function it could spell the end of his career in the field and he wasn't sure that he could handle a second career ending injury. He barely managed to survive the first one, that took away his chance of being a professional athlete.

His team mates were also cognisantof the potential seriousness of DiNozzo's injury to his career, so they ignored his usual glib response to questions about injuries or illness. Tony knew that Gibbs in particular was worried, even if he was incapable of showing his concern about his Very Special Agent; whenever he was confronted with his emotions, Gibbs always reverted back to his default setting of bite- your- head- off gruff.

True to form Gibbs issued McGee with orders to escort DiNozzo to hospital immediately. "Cuff him if you have to, McGee! If he doesn't get checked out, don't either of you bother coming back!

"Great! Just great," grumbled McGee sotto voiced, forgetting for the moment that Tony's acuity of hearing, like his eyesight was exceptional, which meant that Tony could hear his rant even if he pretended not to. "I am so fired. How the hell am I supposed to get Tony to go the hospital? He might act like a five year old most of the time but he can still take me down, even one handed. He'd rather piss glass than see a doctor, let alone get his butt to a hospital. Why me? Gibbs really, really hates me!"

Timothy McGee raised his voice and called out to the Senior Field Agent, "Hey Tony, I'll buy you pizzas for a month if you let me take you hospital. Please," he whined.

Hang loose for a bit, McNanny. I need to make a couple of calls and then I'll go with you."

"Sure Tony, like I still believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy," was McGee's snappy comeback although Tony was no longer listening.

Tony deliberately ignored McGee's taunt, as he stepped aside to begin making his calls in private. He watched as McGee regarded him suspiciously; probably concluding incorrectly this time, that Tony was deliberately keeping him waiting to call one of his many 'bimbos' – Tim's term not his- to cancel a hot date tonight. As he concluded his call with a genuine grin before making a second call using his speed dial, he could see McGee becoming even more irritated. McGee did not exactly possess a poker face when it came to his thoughts and emotions and Tony could read him like a book. Which was why, concluded the Senior Field Agent wryly, he never recommended Tim for undercover missions. He didn't do deadpan!

No doubt McGee was wondering yet again why he seemed to have such success with the opposite sex. Hell he teased him about it often enough and made it pretty damned plain that he couldn't figure out what DiNozzo had going for him. It was also clear that McGee felt more than a touch of avarice, when it came to his so called privileged childhood, growing up in a wealthy family. Like many people, McGee made the mistake of equating wealth with happiness, Tony reflected sadly. Tim still had a chip on his shoulder, about being bullied during his school years and seemed oblivious to the truth that wealth didn't shield you from tragedy and misfortune. Nor did it automatically confer upon you, perfect parents, mores the pity.

If he only knew the truth, Tony thought cynically; but to be fair and he really did try to be, he wasn't all that keen on people knowing just how dysfunctional his childhood and his family had really been. That was why he tried so hard to hide his sordid past from people, even those closest to him. It was much easier to have people think he was a jerk, even if it did hurt to know that his junior partners weren't able to see beyond the superficial. He understood that Tim was envious of his confidence, his charm and ability to flirt with anything in a skirt, while never understanding that it was all just a well constructed act that he performed each day, like a thespian forever playing to an audience. McGee would definitely be shocked if he knew how much Tony envied him his loving and supportive childhood, not to mention his easy, ongoing adult relationship with his parents and sister.

At the completion of his second call, the Senior Field Agent strode over to McGee. He smirked at him and said, " Okay McDoubting Thomas, let's hit the road. Take me to Bethesda and don't forget that you owe me a month worth of pizza's either."

Ignoring Tim's groan over the pizza, he ambled off to the NCIS sedan and climbed in the passenger seat and waited for his partner to follow him. Tony watched as McGee tried to pick his jaw up off the ground. No doubt McGee was wondering what the hell his senior field agent was playing at now. McGee was wearing his exasperated 'he so enjoys messing with my head' expression, no doubt expecting Tony to leap out of the car at any minute and proclaim how gullible McGee was. Much to the apparent amazement of McGee, Tony didn't grumble or try and avoid the hospital and maintained a typical Tony-like persona, of not a care in the world which confused the hell out of his less complex partner.

"Okay so when did the aliens arrive and replace you with a less than perfect clone Tony? What the hell kind of game are you playing?" he growled in a Gibbs-like tone.

Tony gave him an innocent look, before embarking on a long discourse about all the movies he could think of that dealt with alien abduction and substitution. Much to the discomfort of McGee, who was still trying to figure out what the hell Tony was up to.

A/N Thanks to ncismom for her kind assistance in Beta reading this chapter and the prologue. Also for sorting out some POV snafus! Any remaining mistakes are mine. The next chapter is undergoing revisions as we speak and I hope to bring it too you soon. SASundance


	3. Chapter 3

Rating: M

Warning: This story deals with sexual assault, grief, loss and mental illness.

A/N Thanks to Ibinkybella for her terrific job in beta reading this chapter for me and cleaning up my mistakes. I couldn't resist tinkering I'm afraid. Any remaining mistakes are mine. Just a heads up to readers, I am a proud Aussie and while I have made every attempt to use US words and terms, I have not changed the spelling of words. Spelling in my story is Australian/English (or if you like British/English spelling.)

Also thanks to everyone for taking time to review and for the alerts. They are much appreciated :)

**Chapter two: Who Are You and What Have You Done to Tony?**

"You're a doppelganger!" exclaimed McGee continuing on with his earlier theme of substitution to explain Tony's uncharacteristic behaviour. "There can't be any other explanation for the past few hours," he concluded somewhat hysterically as he prepared to phone in a sit rep to their boss." I mean how else do you explain your behaviour Tony?"

He kept such an eagle eye on his partner that Tony felt as if McGee expected him to flee the Bethesda Hospital ER at any second and was preparing to stop him from bolting. As if McWorrywart could really stop him if he wanted to leave, Tony snorted in amusement.

DiNozzo considered his contrary behaviour, as he had arrived at the triage area of the emergency department. He had strolled over and announced himself to the nurse and stated that he was meeting Dr Pitt and Dr Stuart there. The nurse insisted on beginning a preliminary examination of his injury while they waited for the two doctors to be paged and he acquiesced gracefully.

McGee had watched in astonishment as the usually ebullient agent, who always reverted to a churlish, adolescent type persona when confronted by any medical personnel, positively charmed the socks off the new doctor, who turned out to be a crack hand surgeon. Tony watched as McGullible finally put it together; that the two phone calls that he made at the scene of the takedown before heading into Bethesda, were to Tony's buddy Dr Pitt and probably to Ducky, his de-facto physician asking them to find him a leading hand surgeon to examine his hand.

Dr Kristina Stuart, the pre-eminent hand surgeon in Washington was a tall spare woman with mousy brown hair, gradually heading toward mousy grey and a cool competent air that made Tony feel reassured. Following a thorough examination of his injured hand, she determined that there was likely damage to several tendons and potential nerve damage too but until surgery, she was unable to determine the true extent or make an accurate prognosis with regard to regaining full functionality. Her recommendation was immediate surgery and promised to have a micro-surgeon on standby should it be required.

McGee no doubt expected to have to get the Boss and Ducky down there to help hogtie DiNozzo to the bed and brow beat him into consenting to the surgery but Tony was eager to get it over and done with as soon as possible. Although Brad Pitt kept exchanging quizzical glances at Tony and McGee, Tony smirked as he continued to charm the hand surgeon. He was amused that his uncharacteristic behaviour when it came to doctors, was making his friends crazy trying to figure out what the hell he was up to.

As a consummate observer of human behaviour, Tony understood that a surgeon that had a positive emotional connection to a patient, was likely to go the extra mile to achieve the impossible and he was hoping for a miracle here and wanted to stack the deck in his favour as much as he could. No way would he admit to anyone that he was freaking scared out of his tree but that was the case and he wasn't going to do anything that might jeopardise his recovery. If sucking up to his surgeon was going to help her go the extra mile for his hand, Tony was happy to oblige.

It was quite simple, Tony thought to himself. He needed two good hands to be a field agent. Without them it would be almost impossible to argue that he could continue to carry out his duties fully, even though he was a pretty damn good shot with his left hand too. Apart from his job, which defined who and what he was, he also needed his right hand to indulge his secret passion. Music wasn't something he shared with people and very few individuals knew that he could play piano well enough to probably make it professionally or that he could also play guitar passably well too. He never did figure out how Jenny knew about his proficiency with the guitar and when he tried to deny he could play, when she made him pose as a street busker during an undercover operation, she had called him on it. So now there were also various NCIS Intelligence Officers and Pencil Pushers who were there in MTAC that were aware of his skill, although none of them knew how much it meant to him.

Thankfully none of his team had been privy to the surveillance because he had been working off the grid for Jenny. It made him antsy to think that the late Director had known about his closely guarded secret; she obviously must have had extremely comprehensive background information on him, because there were very few people that knew about his music. Or maybe she had just been stalking him, he reflected uncomfortably. He had always been aware on a visceral level that there was something predatory about Jenny's expression when she watched him unguarded. He wasn't sure if it was something about him or something to do with Gibbs. It was almost as if she was jealous: that, or she had a serious Mrs Robinson fantasy, except he was hardly Dustin Hoffman.

Tony's thoughts returned to the music that was so important to him and so terribly private. He loved his jazz and had an extensive collection of sheet music as well as his beloved CD collection but he also played classical pieces sometimes, which would bring back poignant memories of his mother before her death. Given his conflicted emotions about her, it wasn't something he planned on sharing with his colleagues anytime soon; maybe when Hell froze over.

His mother had been a concert pianist before her marriage and Tony always felt as if she might have found reasons enough to live, if his father hadn't demanded that she give up her professional career when they married. Tony knew that their marriage had been rocky from the get-go, with Senior having difficulty with fidelity issues. Even the arrival of her son Anthony Junior, the son and heir demanded by his father to continue the dynasty, had not been sufficient reason for her to find the strength to live for him; or to leave her husband and make a new life with her son. Perhaps if his mom had had a daughter instead of him, it might have been a different story, Tony had always thought.

Instead she wallowed in an alcohol induced haze of despair and apathy; increasingly living only for her music, until she could endure her life no more. An overdose of tranquilisers and sleeping pills, chased down with some super high priced gin, was her ultimate solution. Her suicide, leaving behind as a legacy for her son, not only a life without a mother but traumatic enduring memories of his eight year old self discovering her lifeless body. Any wonder he was conflicted about her!

Maybe that was why he never told anyone about his music. Apart from having to really talk and share some very personal and painful memories from his childhood which he hated, it would also have meant people knowing that he wasn't a good enough son for his mother, not just a disappointment for Senior. He hated anyone pitying him and knowing what a failure he really was. As much as he loved to play piano and remember the times he played with his mother, he also found those memories to be bitter sweet and also prompted episodes of deep melancholy for him.

It was simply too personal for him to share with even his de-facto family, much as he trusted them with his life. He just didn't trust them with what he saw as his many flaws and weaknesses. He craved unconditional love and acceptance but knew deep in his DNA that he simply wasn't worthy of it. So he hid his true self behind a complex series of facades so that people didn't see how pitiful he really was. When he did share snippets of his childhood (after all, to say nothing would provoke unwanted and inconvenient curiosity or attention) it would be some small painful detail, artfully clothed in an amusing anecdote, while managing to deflect any genuine emotion or request for addition details.

So given the importance that music held in his life, it was hardly surprising that he wanted to make sure that his hand healed properly. Without it his world would likely come crumbling down around his ears. He was scared freaking witless about the surgery, not because of the actual procedure; he was afraid of what they would discover when they got in there and what it would mean for those things he held dear. He was pragmatic enough to know that he had stacked the deck as much as possible by Brad organising for Kristina to do his surgery. Ducky had approved of her as well and the sooner he got it fixed the sooner he could start healing and begin physical therapy to regain normal function. He dreaded the thought that he might wake up from the surgery to find his life in tatters but the sooner it was done, the less agonising the wait to find out if he had a future.

He was also evilly amused by the effect his uncharacteristic behaviour was having on everyone from Ducky and Brad, to his team mates and the staff at Bethesda. He had spent enough time here earning a truckload of frequent flyer points, as well as a reputation as a giant pain in the butt; likely to go UA or when that didn't work, signing out AMA and steadfastly trying to refuse to take medications, especially analgesia. His current behaviour was seen as so out of character that several of his former doctors were recommending that he be scheduled for a head CT to check for head trauma or pathology.

One or two even half jokingly suggested getting a psych consult, the sadistic SOBs. So just to be perverse he strived to outdo even his most charming and gracious persona, to captivate every nurse, doctor, intern or orderly within sight. It was not only amusing but it passed the time and made the waiting a bit more bearable. It was fun messing with people's heads, he concluded gleefully.

Meanwhile, McGee had returned to NCIS where Gibbs was no doubt preparing to interrogate PFC McClosky about the amphetamines drug ring. After an initial softening up period in the holding cells, Gibbs was probably now subjecting the hapless Marine to his silent treatment to soften him up even further in preparation for the main game. It was pretty ironic, Tony mused to himself, that Jethro Gibbs utilised some of the same psychological techniques used in therapy that encouraged people to open up to shrinks, to break down suspects, when he abhorred the idea of anything remotely connected to psychiatry.

Tony was the by-product of a plethora of revolving door therapists, counsellors and psychoanalysts during his childhood, and usually dragged there, kicking and screaming by either his parents or school. He understood pretty well the various strategies used by shrinks to elicit responses from reluctant participants. One of the most powerful of which, was silence that stretched on until the victim ... er client was so uncomfortable that they would do or say anything to fill the void, even spill their guts to the shrink. Gibbs combined this with his death-ray glare and was a master at this game of getting even the toughest dirt bags to spill their guts.

Tony hated shrinks just as much as Gibbs and submitted to compulsory psych evals at the point of a gun. Well if truth be told, it was actually threat of removal from the field but that was splitting hairs. At least, thought Tony, his childhood dalliances gave him plenty of practice in how to deflect shrinks asking personal and awkward questions during psych evals. Pesky questions which Tony didn't consider to be anyone else's business but his own. Probably the only one that might be on par with him, in his total distain of shrinks and psych evaluations would be his legendary mentor, Special Agent Gibbs who thought that his way of simply avoiding his issues was the only way to go. Tony smirked as he waited for someone to come in with his pre-op meds, thinking of the paradox that was Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

When they finally came to take him down for his surgery, DiNozzo was cracking joke upon joke and flashing his trademark grin, trying like hell to keep from thinking about what was at stake. He wished that Ducky or Abby was here with him right now to keep his hopes up. Both of his friends were such optimistic souls that they helped to chase away his demons when he was with them. Right now there was a graveyard full of demons, all chasing him down the corridor as he was wheeled away to his appointment with Dr Stuart in the operating theatre.

At least Abby has promised to stop by when he was back from surgery, he reminded himself stoically. She knew just how much he hated the feeling of being out of control, when he was under the influence of mind altering meds. It was also the reason why he made a show of being a hard drinker but rarely ever got drunk, unless the demons were winning. That and the fact that he never wanted to be like his alcohol riddled father.

In fact, Abby more than anyone, had managed to crack his code and unlock a lot of the different masks that Tony used to protect himself from the world. She saw fairly early on in their friendship, that the obnoxious, brash playboy persona was an act. An act that he believed the newer members of the team still continued to accept as being real. Why Abby was able to see his pain so easily Tony wasn't exactly sure, except that maybe she was a witch!

When he was finally returned to his room following surgery he was unaware of his surroundings but as he started coming around, he was immediately aware of the presence of his best friend. She was there murmuring encouragingly to him that it all went well, while she deftly stroked his silky brown hair. Tony didn't really like to be touched much. He was simply not accustomed to being touched as a means of expressing love and affection.

He dimly remembered that his mom used to touch him sometimes and hug him but he mostly remembered his father's hand and it was not used to show affection but to cause him hurt or humiliation. It took him a while to learn to accept Abby with all her touchy feely-ness and although he found it comforting now, especially when he was hurt or hurting, it wasn't a liberty that he normally allowed others to offer him. Apart from that, his hair was so damn fine that you don't mess with perfection he giggled, still held hostage to the hated chemical agents, which robbed him of his usual censoring mechanism.

When he was more compos mentus, he managed to open his eyes, to see her smirking at him sardonically. He wondered what he had done to deserve that look now, so he asked "what's up Abs?" And had a momentary vision of Bugs Bunny.

She smiled at him half proudly and half exasperatedly and said, " It's that famous DiNozzo charm Tony. How the hell you manage to make a conquest with a woman when you are totally unconscious and dressed in a hospital gown to boot, I'll never, ever know. Naked I could understand, but no one looks good in those gowns, even you. I walked in here when you had just got back from the recovery ward, to find your nurse mooning over you and wiping your fevered brow."

Judging by Abby's guarded words and expression, she was being somewhat economical with the details. Contrary to the popular belief that was actively encouraged by none other than Very Special Agent Tony DiNozzo, he truly found any genuine physical fussing or displays of real affection by women to be highly embarrassing and didn't welcome them.

"How do you know it wasn't one of the many nurses that I have extended my considerable charms and flirting skills on before they put me under the knife?" he joked, although he still felt a little concerned."I've been on my very best behaviour," he teased her knowing that it was expected.

He really hated being vulnerable and unable to control his environment when he was in hospital or on pain meds. He slept with a gun close by when he was not in the hospital but he was obviously unable to do so here and it made him nervous.

Abby shook her head and said, "Because Tony-boy, the nursing shifts changed while you were down in theatre. You seduced her without even being awake and I so want to know your secrets. You know how much I hate it when you keep secrets from me," she teased.

Although he looked slightly alarmed and more than a bit uncomfortable, thankfully Abby changed the topic. Soon they began talking about other things that distracted him and he was laughing and joking while he waited for a visit from his surgeon. When Kristina Stuart finally entered his room still dressed in her surgical scrubs, he immediately became serious as he scanned her face for signs of what she had found.

Dr Stuart in her turn was checking out her newest patient and also his somewhat eccentric companion, although Tony had to admit that she tried not to be too obvious about it when it came to Abby. Still, Tony was highly attuned to his friend and would do anything to prevent her getting hurt and he was used to people making snap judgements about his Abby, based purely on her somewhat unorthodox appearance. So he immediately moved into protective mode to prevent Abby feeling like she was being observed like some sort of strange specimen in a jar.

"Hi Kristina" he grinned, "I'd like you to meet my best friend Abby Scuito who is the world's best forensic scientist, not to mention the hottest lab geek and also the kindest person I have ever met. Abby meet Dr Kristina Stuart, the world's best hand surgeon." His intense stare told Kristina that this was someone important to him and he wouldn't tolerate anyone treating her with disrespect or derision. She smiled gently at him, silently acknowledging his unspoken message.

The doctor seemed rather disconcerted to discover that even under the influence of a plethora of drugs, he had so easily read her curiosity and perceptions. What she couldn't know and Tony had no intention of telling her was he was accustomed to people making snap judgements about him based on his looks. It usually involved people seriously underestimating him and he was determined to protect his friend from this unkind fate if he could. Granted, Abby was unorthodox in the way she chose to present herself, especially for someone working in law enforcement. Her raven black hair was upswept into girly pigtails, while her impossibly long legs were clothed in clodhopper type black leather platform boots that wouldn't have been out of place on Herman Munster. Her clothes consisted of an oh so itsy-bitsy miniskirt and a shirt adorned with tiny bats all topped off with her tats and a studded dog collar around her neck and studded bands around her slender wrists.

Abby smiled half deprecatingly, half knowingly, as she extended her hand to the doctor to shake her hand. "Tony is exaggerating, but not about the BFF stuff though. I think that Tony is my long lost twin," she joked flashing her green eyes across at Tony as he reclined on the bed tensely, awaiting his doctor's sit rep on his hand.

Dr Stuart smiled at them both and said, "pleased to meet you Abby" while trying to hide her surprise at Abby's fruity contralto instead of a girlish high voice that she was obviously expecting. Meanwhile, she schooled her features into a professional expression and directed her attention at her increasingly agitated patient, even though both women could tell that he was trying very hard not to show his concern.

"Well," she began, "several of your tendons needed to be repaired which I was able to do successfully. There was minor damage to some of the nerves connecting your fingers which the micro-surgeon spent time repairing as much as he could. We can't guarantee that you will have one hundred percent return to normal function but barring complications and if you follow medical advice religiously for a change -and yes your reputation precedes you- then the chances of you being able to fire a gun again should be pretty good."

"I'll write you up for some pain meds, that you will take," she lectured, already having been given the heads up on his stubborn refusal in the past to take his analgesic meds . "Then you will also need to follow your physical therapist's orders with your rehabilitation too. No pushing too fast or too soon. There is too much at stake here," she counselled him seriously. "I don't want you to undermine my work in the OR tonight, okay Tony?"

She noted that he was concentrating on what she had to say and he nodded seriously. " Yeah Doc I hear ya. I'll be good I promise" he drawled, though his eyes belied the somewhat casual words with his focused determined expression and the pursing of his lips.

Although Abby looked rather shocked by Tony's response, he could see that Kristina knew that he wasn't playing her and would be a model patient even if it killed him. She seemed pretty pleased with herself and her patient and she wished him a good night's sleep and told him she would be around in the morning to see him before he was discharged.

After the doctor left the room, Tony could feel Abby studying him with an intensity that was normally reserved for examining the specimens under one of her microscopes. Finally she could contain herself no longer and she turned to Tony and said, "okay Mister where is my Tony and what have you done with him? There is something hinky and so not Tony-like going on and I want to know what it is."

Anthony DiNozzo smirked and waggled his eyebrows at her while managing to execute an impressive eye roll, which was incredibly infuriating but was also equally cute. "It's simple Abbs," he explained in a measured voice that you use for the seriously deranged when you don't want to rile them." I don't want to be out of a job because I can't fire my gun any more or pl... um do stuff. So I am going to be a good little patient and do what I'm told, so I can come back to work again and be with my favourite forensic scientist," he quickly deflected because not even Abby knew his secret.

Sure she knew that he had learnt how to play piano when he was a child but he never told her how much it still meant to him. He occasionally goofed off for her on the piano when she was over at his place but he never played anything that was truly meaningful or that he had played with his mother. Although Abbs knew that the piano in his apartment wasn't an affectation or decorative piece, she thought that it was probably more of a keepsake from his childhood. It made him feel bad that he was keeping this secret from his friend but it was simply too painful for him to talk about. He knew that if he refused to play at all then Abby would scent out his secret and not rest until he spilled his guts. So he fooled around for her sometimes just to throw her off track, while admitting to her that no one else knew he could play a bit.

Everyone else thought the piano was just for show because of his appearance of being a person of style over substance, although occasionally when Ducky was over, he did catch him eyeing him knowingly. Ducky was a wily old bird but never tried to pry information out of Tony though. He would simply lay a hand on Tony's arm and tell him "if you ever need to talk to anyone young Anthony, I would be honoured to listen." Ducky would give his arm a gentle squeeze and give him a smile that warmed his mild blue eyes; eyes that were a world apart from Gibbs' piercing arctic glare.

So he and Abby spent a few hours together talking about work and the current case as Tony became more and more alert while he continued to metabolise more of the anaesthesia drugs out of his system. Abby wanted to stay the night to keep him company and take him home again in the morning but Tony was attempting to assure her he would be fine on his own for one night.

"Tony I know how much you hate being in hospitals," she pouted.

Tony sighed dramatically and acknowledged the truth of her statement, "I know Abbs, I know but it's just one night. So I think I can cope, although I won't be sorry to get out of here, I admit."

As he was trying to convince her that he would be fine tonight because she had been pulling several all nighters at the lab and was looking rather wan and tired, a nurse came into the room. Noticing Abby's slightly sardonic grin, he concluded using his special agent skills that it was the nurse that Abby had found with him when she arrived. He examined her more closely and noticed that she was extremely attractive. Her hair was a soft hazelnut brown and her eyes were a deep sapphire blue but while stunning, they betrayed a hint of pain and suffering that Tony easily recognised as a fellow soul in torment. Her lips were wide and generous and at the moment were engaged in a friendly smile as she introduced herself.

"Hi, I'm your nurse tonight and my name is Sonata Gordon but most people call me Sona. Well except for a couple of Aussie nurses who always call me Gordo," she giggled. She must have noticed the slight inclination of his eyebrows and hastened to explain. "I had a mother that was a classical musician," she explained patiently. Probably not for the first time, Tony felt sure. He wondered why parents did that to their kids, anyway? If he ever had a kid which wasn't looking all that likely, he would make sure they had a name that didn't require an explanation every time they had to introduce themselves.

"I did meet you earlier when you first got back from your surgery but I guess you don't remember much about that?" Sona joked.

Tony smiled somewhat uneasily and admitted that he didn't recall her before noticing that she had some pills in a cup ready to give him. He quirked an eyebrow at the pills and she said brightly, "yes I have some analgesics here that the doctor prescribed for you and a couple of sleeping tablets to help you get a good night's sleep."

Tony took the pain meds reluctantly, remembering how he had promised to be a good patient but he waved away the sleeping tablets. "Trust me, I won't need those to sleep. The pain meds are enough to knock me out."

He swallowed the pills and chased them down with the water that Sona was holding out to him. Just as she was preparing to do his night obs starting with his temperature, Abby's pager went off. She smiled at Tony and explained her phone was switched off. She excused herself to call into NCIS and returned a few minutes later with a slight frown on her face.

" They need me back at the lab, Tony," she pouted, crinkling her lip adorably thought Tony in amusement.

"I'll be fine Abbs, I promise. I'll go straight to sleep and I will see you in the morning," he grinned at her. "Go, before the Bossman spontaneously combusts," he teased, knowing that she would rise to the bait and defend her beloved Silver Fox. Sure enough, she glared at him, ready to rebuke him when the nurse interrupted.

"No need to worry about him, I'll look after him for you," the nurse promised Abby reassuringly, who she could see was torn between leaving and staying with Tony.

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Abby hugged her friend and grazed her lips across his cheek, glancing at him one last time before saying goodnight to Tony and Sona. All her intuition was screaming that she should stay with Tony but she wasn't sure why. Was it Sona and her mooning over Tony? Abby had spent enough time around Tony to get used to women flocking to him like moths to a flame, especially when he was injured. For some reason he always seemed to bring the protective gene out in anyone with an double X chromosome whenever he was hurt. Funny really, because it made him so darned ansty whenever women fussed around him, wanting to look after him. The only time he ever really relished this super power of his, was when he wasn't really injured and was bunging it on; when he was in control.

Abby remembered how distressed Tony had been when she had mentioned his lustful nurse mooning over him and was glad that she didn't tell him that her ministrations has been bordering on the X –rated. Although he would have been horrified to know the details and wasn't even comfortable with her vague hints, Abby couldn't help smiling to herself. Truth be told, she had a pretty good idea what had prompted the lovesick nurse to be feeling up her best friend's muscular abs in a way that was not exactly therapeutic. Tony was almost unbearably good looking with a smile to die for and lips that begged to be sucked on, eyes to lose ...

Well moving on she concluded, when he slept there was a fragility about him, possibly because his many masks were absent. The absence revealed a childlike quality that made women of all ages want to mother him, which was pretty darned ironic because that was precisely the type of attention that made him uncomfortable. She knew, because she was not exactly immune to the DiNozzo physical attributes herself but had long ago learned to temper her reactions apart from hugs. She understood of course that he found fussing all too confusing to cope with, unless it was in a teasing, superficial fashion that including flirting. So when he allowed her to fuss him like no one else could, she realised just how much he had come to trust her with his deepest secret nature.

Abby almost wished she had kept her observations about the nurse to herself. She had thought that it might cheer him up to hear he had made yet another conquest but it seemed to just freak him out for some reason, "Good one Abbs" she mentally castigated herself. "You were supposed to be cheering him up not creeping him out." So she had set out to take his mind off things by giving him a hilarious account of how her bowling teammates Sister Rosita et al plus herself, had kicked ass against a bunched of local LEOs in the bowling league last night. Tony had been amused by her antics and those of the colourful nuns and seemed to forget about creepy nurses, damaged tendons and finding a new job.

So it wasn't as if Nurse Gordon's attentiveness was all that unusual. It wasn't as if she was jealous of her or anything. Was it because of Tony's bizarre antics since he was injured because everyone had noticed his behaviour, it was so un-Tony-like? Sure it would be considered normal, even reasonable for any other person but Tony wasn't normal and when he started behaving that way, it was just wrong. Or was it that he almost said something important when his defences were down due the chemical concoction of drugs still in his bloodstream? Sure he did his usual job of deflecting attention away from what he had almost said but Abby hadn't been fooled by his tactic although she had chosen not to pursue it ... then.

Whatever it was that was bothering her, it was definitely hinkiness of the highest order and Abigail Scuito didn't like hinky one little bit. Not even a slight case of hinky when it came to those she loved, let alone the force -ten- hinky, something really, really bad was going to happen vibe that she was picking up in Tony's room. Unfortunately her hinky radar was not enough to convince Gibbs that she needed to be here with Tony rather than processing evidence back at the lab.

Abby thought that this was kind of ironic, as the Bossman had no problem backing his own gut but her gut had proved right before when Tony was trapped in a sewer by a serial killer and Cate had been shot by a sniper. So it wasn't as if Abby's gut didn't have form. So even though she headed back to the lab, she couldn't help but think that she would regret ignoring the hinky feeling. It was going to be another long night. In the months to come Abby had no idea just how prophetic her thoughts would prove to be.

A/N Appologies to people who may get a doubling up on alerts because it has had to be reposted due to difficulties.


	4. Chapter 4

Rating:M

Warnings: Deals with adult content; grief, loss and mental issues.

Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS...

A/N Apologies for this chapter taking so long to post. It is also unbeta'd so excuse any glaring errors. Thanks to everyone who reviewed and alerted, it is much appreciated. Hopefully the next chapter should be up much quicker. :)

Running From The Demons

Chapter Three: Going Home

Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo exited the bathroom, pulling down his tee-shirt one handed, leaving it untucked over the top of his favourite pair of jeans, as he walked across to the hospital bed. Abby had dropped his clothes off when she had visited last night. After a life time of injuries and broken bones, Tony was very accustomed to coping one handed but Abby had quickly learnt some of his rules that helped make life easier, when he was flying on one wing.

His jeans were soft and much washed, making it easy to manage the fly and metal button with only one hand. His tee-shirt was loose and stretchy enough to easily fit over his head and the rather impressively bandaged hand, without difficulty. Button down shirts were just too hard for him to manage and asking someone else to do up the buttons evoked uncomfortable memories of his mother dressing him in sailor suits, long after it was either cute or appropriate. But the clothes that the forensic goddess had supplied were perfect. _Gotta love Abbs_, he thought fondly!

He felt marginally better this morning, after a very disturbed night following his hand surgery. Thankfully, a hot shower had helped him to feel a bit more like himself, following his terrible night's sleep or lack of it. When Abby left him last night, he had found the pain medication making him loopy, as per normal. He dimly remembered getting an attack of the giggles, as Sona took his blood pressure. She giggled right along with him, before he found himself feeling drowsy and falling asleep, as the pain meds worked their usual alchemy upon his brain.

Some hours later, a long forgotten nightmare emerged from his subconscious; shattering his sleep and rocking him to the depths of his very carefully constructed and relentlessly, maintained series of defences. It was a familiar and recurring dream from his childhood, one that he had hoped to never have again. He thought he had finally conquered it; banished it forever to the black room, where he always tried to exile the demons that plagued him. It always started off so innocently, with him feeling safe and loved in his mother's arms before going sleep. Since he was mostly put to bed, by the staff as a young boy, the times when he had his mother's undivided and loving attention at bedtimes, were precious and happy memories that he held fast to, as proof that she did indeed love him.

The dream then morphed into him being surrounded by blackness. A dark, clammy, suffocatingly, black vacuum where the only sounds he could hear, were his own pounding heart, his ragged breathing and the slow and steady respirations of someone, as they crept closer and closer. All the while, he tried to scream or run away yet he was completely petrified in fear. A hand was placed over his mouth and he felt like he could not breathe as it began to slowly ruffle his childish locks of hair; before the hand slid inexorably down the back of his head and onto his neck.

By now, he was overwhelmed with the feelings of extreme terror because he was certain that this had happened before; he just couldn't remember what happened next. In his dream as a child, he would feel his bowels begin to loosen and he had an overwhelming urge to void his bladder. In the midst of his dream, Tony would experience utter humiliation, at the thought that he was going to soil himself like a baby but he couldn't move because of the hand on his shoulder. Tony usually felt like his heart was going to explode and then there was a roaring in his ears, as he felt a warm wetness running down his legs.

Finally, the hand covering his mouth was removed for a second and he gasped a ragged breath. He opened his mouth, to try to scream but no sound emerged. Just when he felt as if he was about to die from sheer terror, Tony woke up and found himself in the arms of his nurse, Sonata Gordon while she rocked him like an infant, softly calling to him to wake up from his dream.

Tony was drenched in sweat and he scrunched himself up in the hospital bed, with his long legs drawn uncomfortably up against his chest, trying desperately not to hyperventilate. Sona held him gently but firmly, while his heart continued to pound painfully in his chest and she gently coached him through his panic attack. When he was finally able to breathe again, she encouraged him to lie down while she let go of him and bustled around, changing his sheets and bathing him carefully, before giving him a fresh hospital gown to wear.

By now, he was feeling incredibly embarrassed and completely drained; physically and emotionally spent but he was also terribly afraid, still. Nightmares were part and parcel of his existence, given what his life had been like and the terribly cruelty he has witnessed as a law enforcement professional. This nightmare however was one that haunted his dreams during his childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. Tony had really thought he had subjugated this particular one, though and it brought back all his childhood feelings of fear and perhaps still worse, an absence of control. It must be almost ten years since it has surfaced and he wondered, why here and now, after all this time?

Maybe it was the pain meds, he told himself, deciding to ask Kristina to change it to something different, when he saw her in a few hours time. It wouldn't be the first time that he had had disturbed sleep, while taking pain meds. Meanwhile, Tony was afraid to fall asleep again, fearful that the dream would return. The problem was, that he was so wasted that as hard as he tried to stay awake, he was unable to keep his eyes open.

When he was at home and a nightmare disturbed his sleep, he would go for a run but he guessed that wasn't an option right now. Sona cast a professional eye over her patient and it must have been immediately apparent, that Tony was exhausted but absolutely terrified of falling back to asleep, again. So she talked to him about his work and hobbies, anything to keep his mind off what was clearly a terrifying dream and he slowly began to relax. As his eyelids grew heavier and he found it almost impossible to stay awake, she gently took his hand and looked him in the eyes.

"Go to sleep Tony, and I will watch out for you while you sleep. I'll wake you up if you dream again," she promised him.

Although he didn't want to sleep, the effects of the pain medication relentlessly pulled him back under. All too soon, he felt the unwelcome overture to his childhood nightmare begin once again.

True to her word, Nurse Gordon maintained a careful vigil over the overwrought patient and once again, she gently shook him awake before his dream, reached a paralysing crescendo. Tony awoke for a second time, to find himself wrapped in her arms, while she whispered comforting words in his ears, while she tried to calm him enough, to avoid any more panic attacks. Once, twice, three times more, she interrupted his sleep to drag him out of his terror-filled dreams and while he flatly refused to discuss his dream, she finally managed to get him to open up just a little.

"Do you have many nightmares," she asked him softly?

He smiled sadly and she saw in his eyes, a depth of pain that almost took her breath away. "I've had my share, I guess. All cops doing field work do, I reckon... but this one is different." he trailed off tiredly.

"What do you mean Tony, is this a new dream tonight?" she prompted gently.

Um n-n-no not new, I just thought... it had gone away a long time ago," he mumbled so softly, she had to lean into him to catch what he said.

"I wonder what made it reappear tonight." Sonata mused. Perhaps you need to talk to someone about it Tony."

Tony shot bolt upright in the bed, with terror- filled eyes and shouted, in alarm. "No way!"

Sona patted his shoulder comfortingly and hushed him gently.

"I can't," he pleaded more softly, giving her his beaten, puppy- dog look.

Before she could say anything to that, he started to hyperventilate again, so she focused once more, on getting her patient to match his breathing to her own respirations. Meanwhile she kept up a running commentary, trying to distract him from the disturbing images that had managed to shake his composure so badly. She could tell it wasn't just the fear he experienced but his feelings of helplessness. Clearly, he was a man that placed a great deal of importance on being in control, at all times and it was his total failure to even hide his emotions, which had rattled him. That just ended up making the situation, that much worse.

In the end, Sona agreed to his pleading requests to get him a truck load of coffee from the nurses' station, hoping to stop him from falling asleep again. She handed him the coffee but frowned as she said, "It won't solve this Tony. What happens tomorrow night and the one after that? You can't stay awake forever you know... and you need sleep, in order for your hand to heal."

Tony nodded his agreement. "I know Sonata, I know... but I think that it might be the pain medication. I am particularly sensitive to pain meds, they can make me totally loopy, ask anyone that knows me. They also make me drowsy as an added bonus; sometimes they give me bad dreams."Tony paused for breath, as he obviously attempted to gather his thoughts

"I'm going to ask Dr Stuart this morning, if she can change my meds to something different. Hopefully, that will stop the nightmares; it might also be because I was in hospital, I guess," he explained diffidently, before smiling briefly. "Very Special Agent DiNozzo and hospitals are not a good mix," he quipped, exhaustedly.

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Nurse Gordon wasn't sure, if he was trying to convince himself or her but she figured that he might be right about the pain meds. She decided to raise her concerns with her supervisor and the doctor too, if she had an opportunity.

He smiled at her sheepishly and admitted candidly, "I am feeling a bit exposed here Nurse Gordon. I don't normally wake up crying like a baby and let a beautiful stranger see me so naked. "He smirked ever so slightly and answered her unspoken question."Well yeah, I know! You've already seen me naked tonight but I am talking about letting you see who I really am and what goes on in my head. Trust me it ain't pretty and I should know," he ended sadly.

"Oh Tony, we all have some pretty messy emotional stuff about ourselves, that we try and hide from other people. I have had some pretty hard times lately and I am still such a mess too," she sighed, as she stared deep into his chameleon-coloured eyes. One moment she observed, his eyes appeared to be a bluey green, then as another emotion took over, they would shift, to become more green than blue. When he was extremely agitated, they darkened perceptibly and became almost hazel in colour.

They were obviously a reflection of his inner narrative; although the play of muscles around his jaw and forehead were probably, equally revealing of his emotions as well. She tended to use subtle non verbal indicators, to help access the true condition of patients, because they often lied about their condition, whether consciously or not. Good nurses though, were able to look beyond verbal communication, as they understood that patients often felt too exposed to be honest.

Tony, feeling the depth of emotion in those few, softly spoken words, responded instinctively to the nurse. His eyes immediately reflected an empathy that was totally overwhelming and he reached out to grasp her hand as he said very gently, "I am sorry to hear that Sona. Do you have someone that you can talk to? I mean a good friend or a boyfriend? I mean... I don't think you're married, are you? You don't wear a wedding ring or anything."

Her eyes quickly filled with tears and her lower lip trembled ever so slightly. "Oh my God Sona I didn't mean to make you cry," he crooned, horrified at what he had done. "Forget I asked; it's none of my business."

Sona Gordon steadied herself as she smiled wryly, "Relax Tony, it's just that my best friend... my fiancé actually, was killed just over a year ago and I still miss him so much," she hastened to explain.

He reached over and pulled her into him and gave her a brief awkward hug. "I'm sorry Sona that just sucks. I wish I could say or do something that would make it better but I know that that isn't possible... My friend Abby, she was here tonight, believes that hugs make everything just a little better though... I know that her hugs always make me feel better, when I am feeling bad, well except when I have cracked ribs of course."

"Thanks Tony, you give great hugs," she smiled while returning his hug briefly, thinking how good it felt to be held by such a strong, hot guy after so long. "Just how often do you get your ribs cracked, anyway?" she enquired with a half smile.

"Too often actually," he replied in all seriousness, although his lips quirked fractionally upwards, so she wasn't sure if he was joking or not.

"My boss reckons I have a big mouth and I'm a magnet for trouble but he is pretty much on the money," he quipped, with a slight chuckle. "Seriously, Sona I am really sorry about your fiancé. I know how hard it is to lose someone that you love."

Nurse Gordon hearing his melancholy tone, glanced across and saw the pain of loss, etched upon his face and as she gently extricated herself from his arms, she gave his cheek a pat. She peeked at her watch and gave him a brief smile. "I'd better check on my other patients but I'll be back later."

"I'll be here." He flashed his million dollar smile in her direction and for a moment, Sona's heart skipped a beat as she headed off to make her rounds. Since her fiancé Matt had been killed by a hit and run driver almost eighteen months ago, Tony was the first male that had managed to do that to her. Working in a hospital, she was constantly fending off unwanted advances from highly libidinous male patients, and co-workers.

Something about a hospital, seemed to bring out the testosterone in guys for some reason; maybe it had to do with the uniform or the whole 'nurse fantasy' she reflected cynically. Tony was different somehow; she recognised a fellow tortured- soul and he had shown a genuine empathy which was pretty attractive. Of course, the fact that he was seriously easy on the eye, didn't exactly hurt either, she grinned. Sona decided to give her phone number and email addy to Tony before she went off duty. Maybe, it was time to start dating again, with a certain handsome special agent.

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Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo paced up and down in his hospital room, waiting for Dr Stuart to write him up for some alternate analgesia and get his discharge papers in order. A nurse had already been in to help him into the sling that Kristina wanted him to wear for the next week. It was supposed to help reduce post operative swelling in his hand. There was a knock at the door and Brad strode in to see him, before he went home.

Tony smiled at him. "To what do I owe this pleasure Dr Pitt?" he joked. "Cause I know it isn't medical. My lungs are perfect, you know. Well okay," he amended noticing his friend's expression of disgusted disbelief. "My lungs are perfect for a guy that has had the plague and who also runs eight miles every day without fail."

Brad grinned, right back at him. "Well to be honest, you are totally driving the staff nuts Tony and I'm here to find out what you're playing at. Please put us out of our misery, already! There are a series of high money wagers taking place, all based on your weird behaviour. I've been sent in, to get the skinny."

Tony just smirked, obnoxiously but then became serious as he said, "Thanks for setting me up with Dr Stuart, Brad. I owe ya one. Next time you need a prowler arrested or a love-crazed, stalker patient shot, I'm your man," he quipped. He carefully avoided answering the question that was bugging everyone, about why he was acting like a compliant patient, for once. Let em sweat, he thought evilly!

It's my pleasure Tony, but you're looking a little rattled, not to say down, right ragged." He felt Brad studying him closely. "What's up Buckeye?"

"Just a bad trip Wolverine. You know me and pain meds; they are definitely not my friends. Kristina is going to write me a prescription for something new before I go," Tony explained.

Brad stared at him for a moment and was obviously going to interrogate him further, when a whirlwind of a Gothic forensic scientist swept him aside, as she grabbed Tony and enveloped him in an enthusiastic but gentle hug.

"I missed you so much Tony. Why do you look so bad? What happened to you and why is Brad here? You aren't sick again are you? Why didn't someone tell me?" As she paused to take a breath, Tony placed a gentle hand over Abby's mouth and laughed.

"Whoa, slow down there, Abbs. Take a breath or three. I didn't sleep so good last night." He gave her an intense look and she nodded her head understandingly, because she knew that he suffered from nightmares. They all did, from time to time but Tony had been a cop in some pretty violent locales and seen the worst of the worst. He had also shared some of his childhood with her and she also suspected that he probably had nightmares surrounding the loss of his mother, although he never said much.

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Brad watched the exchange with fascination. He had the feeling that so much more had been communicated between this pair, than just the words that had been spoken. What a strange pair they made, he thought with a mental snort; the seemingly shallow, playboy cop and the brainiac, Goth scientist, who just screamed non-conformity. Yet somehow they understood each other so well, it was a bit scary, he thought. Smiling at his friend and his friend's friend, he excused himself with a promise to get together soon and watch a game. Dr Pitt exited the room and prepared to return to his medical rounds. As he passed the nurse's station, he smiled and shook his head, regretfully.

"Sorry guys, but he wouldn't talk. Maybe we need to get Agent Gibbs on the case." Chuckles accompanied this statement, as Gibbs had earned a fearsome reputation at Bethesda amongst the medical staff. "Looks like all bets are off unless we hold him down and inject him with truth serum." He grimaced and strode off down the corridor towards the elevator.

As he waited for the elevator to arrive, he contemplated the odds that the guy whose dreams and aspirations, he had managed to singlehandedly ruin; could cross his path again as a patient. It had all happened in a split second in another time and place. Brad had tackled Tony and broke his opponent's leg during a college football game, ending any prospect of DiNozzo achieving a professional football career. That whole incident had been an awful blight, not just on Brad's time playing college football but had also soured his whole college experience, to some extent. Knowing that he had scuppered the chances of one of the most promising college athletes of turning pro, had been a difficult thing to deal with. It didn't really help, that he told himself it, was just a dreadful accident.

Then to come across Tony when he was on the knife edge, battling literally for each and every breath and to be able to help save his life; felt like Brad had been offered redemption. Even more startling, was the assurance by the federal agent that he didn't bear the former Wolverine, any malice for the injury or upheaval in his life and plans. Although his life would have probably been very different, Tony seemed to have avoided becoming embittered or needing a crutch to cope with such a major disappointment.

Brad loved his football, but he had always dreamed of a career in medicine and he couldn't begin to imagine, how he would have coped if a freak accident, meant that his dream was shattered before it had begun. Would he, have been able to remain as magnanimous as Tony or resilient enough, to reinvent himself in a second successful career?

Brad was proud to call the Special Agent his friend; they even played the occasional game of one–on-one, with DiNozzo soundly whooping his ass. Despite Tony's pathological phobia of anyone medical or anything remotely resembling a hospital, which frequently resulting in Tony's anxiety levels skyrocketing; or him becoming surly and combative enough to give his boss a run for his money, he had genuinely embraced Brad as a friend. Brad had come to learn, that while he was friendly with a lot of people, Tony didn't place his trust in many individuals so he cherished their friendship.

DiNozzo was also gracious in accepting that his battle with pneumonic plague, had essential been Brad's ticket to medical fame and notoriety. Even though his misfortune had almost cost him his life and left him with seriously impaired lungs, he didn't seem to begrudge his friend, the medical kudos that came with being his pulmonary specialist.

Yet for all their history and now their years of friendship, Tony was still very much an enigma to Pitt. His latest incarnation, as an agent of extreme bonhomie and compliance, was so far out of left field that Brad felt like he had whiplash, from trying to figure out the changes in his demeanour. As the elevator finally arrived, it did not escape his attention that DiNozzo had seemed to derive a perverse pleasure in concealing the reason why he was acting so out of character. The annoying bastard!

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Abby carried in his overnight bag, while Tony awkwardly inserted his key into his front door lock and entered into his apartment with a sigh of relief. "Thanks Abby, I really appreciate you driving me home. I can't wait to get some real sleep in my own bed tonight." He crossed to the fridge, pulled out a bottle of water and cocked an eyebrow at his friend, silently asking if she wanted anything.

"I'm fine Tony; I'll pick up some Caff-Pow on the way back to the lab. I left you some soup in the fridge, for you to heat up at lunch. I'll be back again tonight and we can watch a movie." She walked over and looked searchingly into his face and asked, "are you sure everything is alright, Tony?"

He smiled fondly at her and kissed her cheek, while walking her towards the front door. "Sure Abbs, I'm just fine and dandy as Ducky would say. I'll see ya soon. Say hi to Team Gibbs for me and tell Boss I'll be back on deck tomorrow. On desk duty," he assured her quickly, seeing her incredulous expression.

As Abby climbed into her car, her 'Hinky Meter' was screaming full on in _'Warning, warning Will Robinson mode,' _as Tony would say. There was something very wrong with her friend, even if she couldn't put her finger on what it was. Maybe she would be able to get to the bottom of it tonight, she thought. Time to get her head back into 'Labby's World' she thought, as she turned her radio up to its usual, head exploding volume.


	5. Chapter 5

Rating: M for adult themes.

Disclosure: NCIS characters do not belong to me.

Running From the Demons

Chapter Four: Rehabilitation

Several weeks later and Tony was still on desk duty, but his hand was responding well to physical therapy. Dr Stuart was pleased with his progress thus far and fairly confident that the surgery was going to be a total success. Tony was eternally grateful and jokingly promised to name his first born girl in her honour.

While it might not have been brain surgery or treating him for cancer, he knew that Kristina's skill had probably saved his professional career, which was his life. He was already using piano scales and arpeggios at night to help rehabilitate his injured hand and by now, he could notice more movement every day. He hoped that soon he would be able to play his beloved Jazz and fire his weapon again.

Abby had also suggested that she teach him sign language as a way to work on his fine motor skills. It was the perfect opportunity for Tony to surprise Abby and he had been waiting for just such an opening. He flashed her a mischievous grin before slowly signing, "sure Abbs that would be great."

Abby dropped her Caff-Pow on the floor of the lab, in shock although thankfully, it was nearly empty. Abby always said it was a sin to waste good Caff-Pow and Tony could see her tragically eyeing the remains all over the floor. Then she apparently remembered why she had dropped it. Narrowing her eyes as she glared at her friend, she jabbed her finger in his chest and growled in her husky voice. "You'd better start explaining Mister."

Tony laughed, pleased to have gotten one up on his friend. "It's simple Abby, I got tired of you and Gibbs having conversations about me behind my back... ah actually my front," he joked, grinning at her. "You know how nosey I am, so the last time I was off injured, I decided to enrol in a sign language course. I am still pretty slow and I only know the basics so I'd love some more lessons, if you're willing. My physical therapist thinks that it's a good idea for fine motor skills, too. I already talked to her about this."

"Just one thing Abbs, can we keep it a secret, at least for a while?" He gave her one of his big eyed puppy dog looks, the one up from under his long eyelashes, which was almost irresistible. "I'd like to get one back on Gibbs and it would be sort of cool to have some fun with this?" he pleaded his friend.

Abby agreed, albeit reluctantly, to keep Gibbs in the dark about Tony's new found skill. "Oh please, come on Tony, he's Gibbs, he knows everything and if he's pissed, I'll blame it on you," she warned him, dubious that they would be able to keep it from him for long. Tony watched her as she stared at him, slowly taking him in from top to bottom, probably noticing that he was still pale and exhausted.

She crossed the floor to give him a hug and as soon as she wrapped her arms around his waist, she tried to feel him underneath his clothes. Tony was well aware he had lost weight. Between not being able to eat most of the time and throwing up what he did manage to force down his throat, weight loss was a given. Not that he wanted Abby to know that, so he decided to deflect with a little outrageous flirting.

"Like what you see, my Dark Princess of the Night? Decided that it was time to get into shape and drop a few pounds. Don't think I didn't notice you feeling me up," he joked, batting his lashes at her suggestively.

"Tony what is going on with you? And before you tell me your fine, I know that is total BS." She glared at him before she softened her stare, so he could read how worried she was about him.

He sighed, knowing that it was hard to fool Abby, as she knew him better than anyone. "I'm having trouble sleeping," he grimaced.

It wasn't a lie he thought; it just wasn't the whole truth. It wasn't a lie, he thought; it just wasn't the whole truth. The complete truth was that he was too freaking _scared _to go to sleep, because when he did, he would wake up with such extreme panic, that he often didn't make it to the bathroom in time to throw up. He couldn't eat, he was having difficulty concentrating and he was having difficulty in maintaining his Very Special Agent Tony DiNozzo mask, which he normally wore so effortlessly.

Although he couldn't stop the dream from invading his nights, it was also starting to bleed into his days as well. As he became more and more sleep deprived, he began falling asleep during the day too. It was getting so bad that he even briefly considered talking to someone, but the thought of doing that filled him with even more terror than the dream itself, which didn't make a whole lot of sense. He decided that when he was back in the field, everything would return to normal. He just needed something to distract him; he never coped well with becoming bored.

Abby watched him, clearly telegraphing her reservations, because although he wasn't lying to her he wasn't telling her everything, either. She always had an unerring knack of detecting when people were keeping stuff from her and he expected that she would call him on it. So he was a little surprised when she smiled at him and asked, "Did you ever call Sona, Tony?"

He shot her a shocked look. "How did you know that, Abby?"

"Oh pl-ease Tony, I could tell she would give you her phone number. They all do," she smirked. "So are you still seeing her?"

He paused a moment and frowned before answering. "We've been out a few times, just for a meal Abbs, but ..."

"What Tony?"

"She's nice, Abby. I really like her a lot. She was kind to me that night in the hospital, helped me to ... um we talked a lot, but she lost her fiancé last year and I don't want to hurt her. I don't think she has recovered yet and I'm a bit of a mess right now, too. I'm just not sure that we're good for each other, I suppose. I don't know Abbs, it feels wrong," he said earnestly.

Tony thought about Sonata Gordon. She was funny, kind and quite beautiful, but she was also tortured by the death of her fiancé, Mark who had been the victim of a hit a run accident as he was crossing the road. Mark had been on his way to meet Sonata at a restaurant. Naturally, she had felt guilty, as anyone would after losing someone they loved under those circumstances, even when it wasn't their fault. Tony didn't think she had had managed to move beyond the guilt stage, yet.

He also recalled the night they were having dinner at his favourite Italian restaurant, when a couple came in with a young baby and sat down at the next table. He saw how Sona tensed up at their arrival, and later, in the car on their way home she began to talk about Mark and her plans to marry and have a family. They were already trying to have a baby and she found out just after Mark's funeral she was six weeks pregnant. Then, not very long after the funeral, she miscarried their baby, adding to her misery. Sona collapsed against him in tears after sharing her story, so he held her and let her cry out her pain, without offering any empty words of consolation. He knew from experience that it didn't help.

Spending time with her was nice because they were both lonely and he did want to repay her kindness. He was desperately sorry for her loss, but he wasn't sure that it was a good time for either of them to start anything serious. Sure they had hugged and had even kissed once but he hadn't take the next step, although he sensed she would have been more than happy go there. If he was honest though, given that he had so many issues, he wasn't sure that it was a good idea to try and start something with someone who was probably as emotionally damaged as himself.

It was also why he knew he would never take the flirting with Ziva any further than the teasing that had been going on for years. There was no way he would break Rule 12 by sleeping with his partner. His younger self might have made that mistake but post Jeanne, he was too wounded to make a faux pas like that. If he thought that there was a real chance for them to be happy long term, he might just consider incurring the wrath of the Great and All Knowing Oz...um, Gibbs, but Tony was nothing if not a pragmatist.

He knew there were bets taken out at NCIS on when he and Ziva would finally break Gibbs' Rule 12, but Tony knew that the pair would never work long term. They both came from incredibly dysfunctional families and both had lost too many people that they cared about, not to mention seen and done too many distasteful things, which continued to haunt them. They were too similar, and while they may have a great affair for a few months, they would ultimately end up hurting each other because of all their issues. Not the least of which, was their inability to open up about their past.

Tony knew that he was messed-up, but he also realized now that if he wanted to find lasting happiness and a relationship with someone he loved, he needed to find someone who wasn't a carbon copy of himself. And while Sonata was nothing like Ziva, she was also still emotionally damaged, at this point in time. And frankly, he couldn't help but wonder with this dream that was torturing him, if he wasn't going crazy. He just knew that as much as he was grateful for Sonata's help and he was sorry for her pain, he could barely hold _himself_ together. He really didn't want to be responsible for causing her any more hurt.

He could never forgive himself for doing that again. Jeanne was so damaged that she had needed to run away to an entirely different continent, just to escape him. Although he wished they had met at a different time in his life, he was afraid to enter into a serious relationship with Sona and he was way beyond entering into casual sex, especially with someone he cared about. He sighed, thinking that they would have to talk. _I would like to keep her as a friend,_ he pondered, but he wasn't sure if she would go for that given that she has tried to initiate sex between them. As if he didn't have enough to deal with; he would have to take care to let her down very gently.

Abby remained silent as he tried to make sense of what was happening to him. Tony really wished that he could talk to her about his dreams, but when he tried, he became extremely anxious which made no sense to him, at all. It wasn't as if Abby hadn't been around when he had nightmares before. She also knew how much he hated people seeing him after experiencing one. He always believed that people would think that he was weak if they witnessed him wake up crying and afraid. Tony had been conditioned from childhood, to believe that there was no greater sin than appearing weak. It was something that was to be avoided whatever the cost.

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Sonata Gordon checked her phone and saw that Tony had sent her a text, suggesting they grab dinner tonight. She called back and organised to meet him at the new seafood restaurant that they both wanted to try. She decided she would wear her new sexy red dress that she had bought when Tony had joked about it being his favourite colour for a woman. She was starting to daydream about moving in with Tony and them having a baby together.

Truth be told, after losing Mark's baby, she had had an unquenchable desire to have a baby. She saw babies everywhere, at work, at the supermarket, when she was driving and even when she watched television. It seemed that every commercial, every television show, every movie, every celebrity was somehow connected to babies or pregnancy in some way. At work when someone fell pregnant, she would request changes to shifts so she wouldn't have to be around them. She made excuses when her workmates invited her to baby showers and she would turn around and walk out of a store, if she saw anyone that was obviously pregnant.

That night in the restaurant with Tony, she would normally have rushed out but she didn't want him to think she was a loony, so she had forced herself to finish her meal. Then she had ending up collapsing in a emotional heap in Tony's arms when they got back to his car. He had been so kind and non judgemental. He didn't try to cheer her up or torture her with any of the normal empty platitudes that people tried to inflict upon her, when they learnt about her loss. She was eternally grateful that he just held her tight and let her cry.

Luckily, working on the surgical ward, she had been able to avoid dealing with pregnant women or women with young babies to a large extent. Sometimes they would confront her though when she was nursing a patient and their family came to visit. When that happened, she usually managed to swap patients with one of the other nurses, or if not, she would try to ignore them as much as possible. She was shocked at how intensely jealous she felt whenever she had to be around an expectant mother for any length of time, but she simply couldn't control the way she felt or the desperate longing for a baby.

Things were finally beginning to look up again, now that she and Tony were seeing each other. He seemed to see all of her pain when no one else could. She just wished that he would take the next step in their relationship, even though he had been badly hurt too. They were really great together and there was no point in waiting. When something felt as right as her and Tony, it didn't make sense to waste time. She knew from bitter experience that life was too short for playing things safe.

She had lost Mark, who was the love of her life, and his child, but she really felt that she had been given a second chance when fate had interceded and placed her Very Special Agent into her path that night. Maybe tonight after dinner would be the night that they would finally make love and who knows, they might even conceive a precious life together. Finally, her life was changing for the better.

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Tony hung up the phone after arranging a time and place to meet Sona for dinner that night. Gibb's was glaring at him, with the expression he usually reserved for suspects about to be taken apart up in interrogation but it took longer than usual for his senior field agent to become aware of Gibbs ire. That surprised Gibbs somewhat, as Tony was normally much more in tune with his various moods, grunts and barks than anyone else that he'd ever worked with. What the hell was up with him anyway?

"Sorry Boss I know how you feel about personal calls," he apologised hurriedly.

"Don't apologise DiNozzo, you know better than that. Is that why you look like crap? You got yourself a new girlfriend? Is that what's stopping you from getting enough sleep? How do you expect to be fit to get back in the field, if you're tomcatting round til all hours?" he barked while McGee and Ziva ducked their heads down and found something requiring their immediate and full attention on their computer monitors. It was always good sport to watch Gibbs eviscerate someone, as long as it wasn't them. Especially when it was Tony that had pissed Gibbs off.

Tony sighed and risked imminent death with a slight eye roll, before plastering his special agent mask firmly in place. "No Boss, Sona is just a friend that's been helping me since my hand surgery. I haven't been sleeping so great but my doctor is pleased with my progress. She thinks that another week, maybe two, and I'll be clear to return to field work. It's all good," he said confidently, flashing a grin at his boss who watched him with a 'do I look stupid' expression.

Gibbs maintained his death ray glare for another sixty seconds before he remembered that it rarely worked on DiNozzo. Even if he pretended that he was cowered, Tony always acted that way to preserve Gibbs' reputation as a bastard. It was one of the things about Tony that Gibbs first admired, he reminded himself wryly. He wasn't easily intimidated, not by anyone, not even Gibbs with two Bs. Gibbs wasn't convinced, though, by his assurances.

Abby wasn't the only one who had noticed Tony's decline. Gibbs knew something was up with his senior field agent apart from being on desk duty, with an injured hand. Jethro knew that Tony used his different personas to hide behind in the same way that Gibbs used his angry, functional mutism to hide his own emotional pain and vulnerability, making it hard for others to get too close. Ducky often joked about how much alike he and DiNozzo were and in some ways it was true, which was why they understood each other so well.

Lately though, Tony was having trouble keeping up his juvenile, playboy persona and he was looking like the walking dead. Gibbs also knew that he would never get any satisfactory answers out of Tony here in the bullpen. He decided to drag him home to dinner as soon as they wrapped this case and find out what the hell was going on with him.

A/N Thank you to everyone who reviewed, alerted and faved this story. Also heart filled thanks to Ibinkybella for beta reading this chapter and making sure the commas are all in the right places :) All remaining mistakes are mine. Hope you enjoy this chapter!


	6. Chapter 6

Rating: M

Disclaimer: I don't own the NCIS characters ... but if I did...

Running With The Demons

Chapter Five 'Taken'

Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo had had a really good day and was feeling euphoric. Dr Kristina Stuart had cleared him for field duty, which meant he would return to active duties, next week. He had already passed his firearms test and he had spent last night, sitting at his piano, working his way through his favourite jazz repertoire. Although there was a little residual soreness and stiffness left over from his session at the piano last night, his hand felt pretty good.

On the flip side, he was still no closer to banishing his nightmare. He continued to lose weight, because he was unable to eat without throwing up, and he was beyond exhausted from lack of sleep. His anxiety levels were off the chart, and he felt like his life was falling apart. Tony fervently hoped, when he got back into the field again, that everything would return to normal. He decided to go for an extra long run later that night, before going to bed. Maybe it would help him sleep without the dream occurring. It was getting so bad; he couldn't stop thinking about 'the dream' even when he was awake.

Still, he was on his way home, it was Friday evening and there was a pizza with his name on it, and a couple of brand new DVDs waiting for him to watch, tonight. The icing on the cake was that Abby was coming over, to participate in his movie marathon. It had been a while since they had gotten together for one, and he always enjoyed spending time with his friend, especially since she shared his interest in movies. So he was optimistic, that life would start to turn around. He had to get some proper sleep soon, or he was going to end up in a padded room.

He hoped that Sona was doing okay but he hadn't talked to her since the night they had dinner, when he'd told her that he wasn't ready to get into a serious relationship. He tried to explain that the nightmare he had had, that night in the hospital, hadn't gone away and it was messing with his head, in the worst way. Sona had said that she didn't care, that she wanted to help him, but he was adamant that it was no way to start a relationship. He wanted something permanent but until he sorted himself out, he couldn't be a good partner and he didn't want to screw up their friendship, trying.

He gently suggested, that she was also still grieving for Mark and her child, and that she needed more time, as well to get over her loss. Sona had argued with him, and he realised that she probably wouldn't want to stay friends. It made him sad because he didn't have many good friends who had seen him, with all of his insecurities, but he understood. He really wanted to call her, to check that she was okay. She had been through such a lot, and been so caring, but he thought she would only misinterpret his actions, if he called, and then he would cause her more pain. Maybe he could get Brad to check-up on her, though.

As he pondered what a mess he had made with Sona, he rounded a bend in the road, to find headlights coming straight for him, on his side of the road. He trod on the brakes, after he wrenched the steering wheel hard to the left to avoid a head on collision. Tony hit the side of the road, in a controlled skid, before slamming into a tree. His airbag inflated, then his head connected with the driver's side window, and he wasn't aware of anything else, until he regained consciousness, some time later.

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Abby arrived at Tony's apartment, at 2000 hours only to find the place in darkness and Tony not at home, yet. She was a little surprised, but figured he'd been held up. She pulled a key to his apartment, out of her purse, opened the door and went inside. She switched on the lights and looked around, but there was no sign that Tony had been home, yet. Abby reached for her phone to called Tony's cell, which went straight to voice mail, so she left a message.

She went into the kitchen and got a cold beer out of the fridge, and came back, sitting down on Tony's soft leather sofa, to wait. Forty minutes later, she called Ziva, to see if Tony was still at the office or been called out to a case. According to Ziva, he had left work at the same time as McGee and herself, and had driven off, some ninety minutes ago.

By now, Abby was starting to get worried, given how fatigued Tony had been, lately. She called his favourite pizza place, to find out if he had collected the pizza he was supposed to be bringing home, but it was still waiting to be picked up. After trying his cell for the tenth time without luck, Abby's hinky detector was screaming at her, so she called Gibbs, in a panic.

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"What ya got Abbs" he answered the phone and coped an earful, from his very worried forensic scientist.

"Okay, ya need to slow down, Abbs, 'cause I can't understand you." He heard her take a big heaving breath, and he realized she was close to tears. She quickly explained, what had happened.

"Stay where you are, Abby, I'll be with you, ASAP," he promised and was out the door, tyres screaming down the road, while calling McGee and Ziva. He ordered them to start checking with the local LEOs, to see if Tony's car had been in an accident. He also told McGee to issue a BOLO on his car, while he ordered Ziva to drive the route from Tony's apartment and back track to the Navy Yard, to see if she could locate him. He was starting to get a very bad feeling in his gut, because he knew that Tony would never arrange to meet Abby and simply not show up. If he was delayed, he would call her. He knew how much she worried about them all, and he knew that Gibbs would kill him, if he hurt her, so that meant that there was something wrong.

Twenty minutes later, he was sitting on DiNozzo's sofa with a crying Abby in his arms, as she demanded to know what had happened to him. Gibbs had no answers for her but a few minutes later; McGee called to say that local LEO's had found his car slammed into a tree. There was no sign of DiNozzo but there was a small amount of blood found on the driver's side window. They were hoping that Tony had wandered away from the car, possibly concussed, but hopefully, not too badly hurt.

Ziva called in next, with a sit rep from the scene, which she had come upon while she was driving his home bound route. She reported that a search of the surrounding area was being undertaken, although it was being hindered, by the darkness, without even moonlight, to assist in locating him. Nevertheless, Tony who as an ex-cop, had remained on amazingly good terms with all the local LEOs, soon had a small army of volunteers gathered together, to help in the search for him, in case he was injured.

Gibbs called Ducky to come and stay with Abby, while he ordered McGee to join him and Ziva at the scene, to process evidence and question witnesses. It soon became obvious, that there were only a couple of witnesses they could interview. One person thought there might have been a car on the wrong side of the road that caused the accident. McGee also found some tyre tracks that seemed to confirm that account. They would have Abby analyse the evidence they had managed to collect, as well as examining Tony's car, which they had towed back to NCIS. The search for Tony, had so far, failed to find him in the surrounding area. Everyone was waiting for the dog teams to arrive, hoping they could pick up his scent, and track him down. As of yet, there was little to go on, and Gibbs felt his gut tightening which was never a good sign.

It wasn't until the following morning, that they managed to catch their first break, with a young witness coming forward, who had been riding his bicycle along the road when Tony crashed his car. He also saw what had gone down after Tony's car crashed into the tree. Michael Johnson, saw a car coming straight at Tony on the wrong side of the road. The eleven year old, reported that he'd tried to get out of the way and had ended up skidding, before slamming into a tree, by the side of the road.

This was consistent with what was reported by the other witnesses already, but then his account took an alarming turn, when he reported that the second car pulled up very close to the driver's side of Tony's vehicle. He'd seen a figure, dressed all in black, who had gotten out of the car. This person had pulled a staggering Tony out of his car and forced him into the back seat of the second car, before speeding off, without having any headlights switched on. Michael could only remember, that the car was dark blue or black, had four doors, not a hatch back and wasn't an American car but he wasn't sure what it was. Without lights, he hadn't been able to see a license plate, either.

Michael's eye witness account changed the whole complexion of the investigation, into the crash. Although they still had to continue to investigate the possibility that their Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, might have wandered away from the accident site, due to an injury head from the accident, they now had another solid lead. It was looking more and more, as if they were investigating the abduction and potential attempted murder, of a Federal Agent by person's unknown. The local PD continued to search for Tony, in case he was wandering around somewhere out there, while Gibbs and the rest of the team focused on Tony's possible abduction. The search dogs had failed to pick up any trace of him, making it highly unlikely that he had left the vicinity on foot. It tended to corroborate the kidnap theory!

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As soon as they reached the office, Gibbs had ordered McGee to check out the file of potential criminals that had a beef or had threatened revenge against Tony, during his time at various police departments and NCIS. DiNozzo kept the file in his desk and updated it regularly, to reflect new cases, parolees or recently released criminals. It was, reflected Tim, a very large file and it meant that Tony had pissed off a hell of a lot of criminals. Tim groaned a little, until he found that DiNozzo had done a risk analysis on the most likely prospects, which gave McGee somewhere to start.

He also need to check to see if anyone new, had been paroled or released since the last time Tony had updated his file, a few weeks before. McGee wondered if he would ever need to maintain a file like this one. Tony always played the idiot at work, so it was easy to underestimate him and his career but this file was a tangible testament to the professional expertise in law enforcement; that was Very Special Agent Tony DiNozzo. Even with the shortlist of candidates, it was going to take time to check out all of the potential suspects.

Just when he thought he had his work cut out, Gibbs unlock a draw in his desk and tossed an even bigger file on top of McGee's desk and said, "This one's my list, just in case someone is out to get me, through Tony. Work his file first McGee and if you have no joy, then start on mine. Don't bother with the cases we've both worked together, as I'm sure Tony will have already included those ones in his own file. "

As time was crucial in abduction cases McGee fervently hoped that they didn't need to move onto Gibbs' dirt-bag file, anytime soon. If they were looking at an abduction scenario, Tony and Gibbs had drilled into him, the importance of the forty-eight hour window that existed, before the odds of a successful conclusion was a statistically likely outcome. They had already passed the fourteen hour mark, and the clock was racing.

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Gibb's directed Ziva to check her contacts, to see if she could find a motive or determine if there was a contract, out on DiNozzo. Then, he wanted her to interview Tony's friends and neighbours, about any irregularities he might have mentioned in passing, as well as focusing on his finances, to look for any possible motives. He barked at her, to check his diary and emails for possible leads, as well as liaison with the Virginia PD regarding the search of the accident site, which would be winding down soon.

He also told Ziva he wanted her to accompany him, when he checked out DiNozzo's apartment for any clues about what had happened. Gibbs knew that all was not well, with his Senior Field Agent and he cursed himself roundly, for not making it a priority to find out what had been causing Tony, to look like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Was DiNozzo being threaten by someone, he wondered? He needed to talk to Abby, because he knew that Tony confided in her, or, sometimes Ducky. Gibbs headed off down to Abby's lab.

Entering it, he immediately noticed that there was an absence of the usual ear drum shattering, migraine inducing, noise that Abby called music. Abby's musical choices or lack thereof, were just as much a reflection of her emotional state, as were DiNozzo's dress choices, he reflected. Abby was beside herself with concern. She looked up at him as he walked in and grimaced.

"I don't have anything for you Gibbs" she started, her lip quivering slightly. "Those tyre tracks were a cheap generic brand, used on scores of different models of Asian built, medium sized vehicles." He sighed, although it was at least, confirmation of sorts about Michael's eyewitness account.

"What about DiNozzo's car, Abbs?" he asked. "Anything there?"

"Well, they found Tony's cell phone under the seat, probably from the impact of the crash. So far, nothing helpful there, I'm afraid. There's also a lot of trace evidence, Gibbs. Plenty of fingerprints were found inside and outside of the car."

"I'm running them down now, plus it looks like someone has wiped down the door handle, on the driver's side. There's also hair from at least a dozen people inside the car. As far as finger prints go, I ruled out mine, Ziva's, Tim's and Jimmy's so far," she finished sadly.

At the mention of the MEs assistant, Jimmy Palmer, Gibbs shot the forensic scientist an enquiring look. She smiled and answered his unspoken question." Chill-ax Gibbs! Palmer is not a crazy serial killer or something." She frowned at him for even suspecting one of the team, before continuing.

"He and Tony are really good buddies and often go out for a meal or a drink. They play basketball together. Jimmy sometimes subs for Tony on the local LEOs basketball team when they are short, a player. Palmer said Tony occasionally helps him cram for exams. Pretty sure that Tony gave him a key to his place, so if he needed some place to crash or a quiet place to study, he could use Tony's spare room. And before you go off, and get the thumb screws ready for Jimmy, don't forget I have a key to Tony's apartment as well," she finished in a rush, before taking a breath.

"Okay Abbs, I just didn't know about Palmer," he stated with a glare. Gibbs hated not knowing about things that concerned his team. It didn't happen very often, so it made him feel extremely uncomfortable when it did. He also added Palmer to the list of people to talk to, that might be able to give him a heads up, on what had been upsetting his agent. He also had to admit, he was seriously pissed that he wasn't the one that Tony went to anymore, but the past few years had placed stress on his relationship with DiNozzo, he admitted to himself. This realisation did nothing to improve his mood, either!

"Abby, what's been going on with Tony, lately. Something's up with him, and he looks like the walking dead." He mentally Gibbs-smacked himself at his choice of words, as Abby's eyes filled with tears.

"I wish I knew, Bossman. He's been acting real hinky, ever since he hurt his hand. He did tell me he's been having trouble sleeping, but I don't think that he told me the whole story, if you get my drift. You know that he has nightmares, right?" She quirked an eyebrow at him, inquiringly and when he nodded assent, she continued. "But he barely eats anything and he's lost so much weight. I mean I knew that, but last week when I hugged him, I was totally shocked, at exactly how much weight he has dropped, since the surgery."

_Damnit,_ thought Gibbs. He'd totally failed to see Tony's weight loss. He'd missed DiNozzo's friendship with Palmer. Was he losing his famous Gibb's touch?

"What about girlfriends Abbs," he asked her? "Tony was making a date with someone last week, on the phone. Any ideas, about who that might have been?

Abby nodded. "It was probably that nurse from Bethesda - Sonata Graham, no wait...Gordon, I think. She was looking after him, the night he had surgery, but she isn't his girlfriend or anything. Tony was just gratefully to her, for helping him through the night after his anaesthetic and the pain meds. You know how he gets – right? I think he had a pretty bad night and she sort of cried on his shoulder, too, I think. Tony said she was getting over the death of her boyfriend, or something."

"Are you sure she's just a friend Abby, it doesn't sound like DiNozzo, to be just '_friends_' with a pretty nurse. She is pretty, I'm guessing?"

"Yeah, Gibbs she is, and I'm pretty sure. You can talk to her but Tony was pretty definite that although he really liked her, he thought that they were both too messed up, right now to start something serious."

"Doesn't mean that he wasn't sleeping with her Abbs," Gibbs said quietly, surprised when Abby started to shake her head vehemently.

"But I am sure, Bossman. Tony really liked her and he didn't want to hurt her. He was so worried about that. Since 'that woman' broke his heart, he doesn't serial date anymore. He's stopped having one night stands and he's really afraid of getting hurt again. Tony wouldn't sleep with anyone, especially Sona, unless he was serious about being with them. He knew that he was not in a good place to begin something with her, and no way would he risk it. I'm sure of it, Gibbs. Of course Sona was smitten by him, I could tell, but no way would Tony take advantage of that."

Gibbs looked gobsmacked by what Abby had just told him. He knew that Abby meant Jeanne Benoit when she referred to 'that woman.' Abby despised her, he knew, but he was shocked at what she had revealed about Tony. He had no idea how much that FUBAR undercover Op, had affected his senior field agent. He knew that Tony had fallen for her, but that was more than eighteen months ago.

He was shocked, at the thought that it still affected him, so deeply. Yet, knowing how deeply wounded he'd been by Wendy's betrayal, which ultimately, had been the catalyst for Tony becoming the one who always did the leaving, long before anything got too serious, he really shouldn't have been too surprised. DiNozzo was so much more sensitive than people, who didn't know about his past, could begin to imagine.

What the hell else, have I missed with DiNozzo, he thought, savagely? He knew that Tony was deeply affected by his childhood, although he never got the full story. Just the bare bones that his mother died accidentally, when he was eight years old and his father was a class A bastard. He suspected that Ducky knew more, yet he refused to spill his guts, citing patient confidentiality.

Gibbs also knew about Tony's ability to hide his intimate self, behind his various masks. It was what made him the superlative undercover operative that he was, but then, even knowing that about him, Gibbs had still been duped by his own partner. Or maybe you just stopped looking out for him; he mentally castigated himself bitterly. When I get him back, I'm so going to kill him!

It was now approaching thirty six hours, since the last know sighting of Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo. There were no promising leads on his abduction and the pressure upon his team was rapidly rising, along with Gibbs' blood pressure and his temper. Interviews with friends and neighbours shed no light on what was disturbing him, although most of his female neighbours, regardless of their age, expressed dismay at how much weight he had lost in the past few weeks. That particular snippet of information, caused Gibbs to glower fiercely, when Ziva reported it.

His apartment revealed no clue, as to what was bothering DiNozzo, but did confirm that there was something definitely wrong. There were no pizza or takeout cartons in the trash and very little food in the fridge. The fridge was full of beer and there were no empties in the trash, but there was evidence in the bathroom that DiNozzo had been tossing his cookies. Yet according to his surgeon, Tony hadn't mentioned sleep difficulties or disturbed appetite. Given that he had received clearance to return to field work, it seemed likely, that his symptoms and sleep disturbance, wasn't due to his injured hand.

The fingerprints and hair found in his car, also failed to reveal anything either. "So," Gibbs concluded furiously, "you've got nothing!" "Did you talk to that nurse friend of Tony's, Officer David?" he enquired sarcastically.

"Yes I did, Gibbs. She said they went out for dinner a few times, but she hasn't seen him since last week. She said he was having trouble sleeping. I got the feeling, she had a crash on him but he didn't feel the same."

"It's a crush Ziva," McGee corrected her "and that's sounds like typical Tony behaviour." She nodded in agreement.

Well at least he wasn't the only one, not to notice DiNozzo's dramatic change in dating behaviour, Gibbs concluded maliciously. Looks like Tony hadn't lost his ability to fool his teammates or should he say, his marks? He decided that he wouldn't enlighten Tony's team mates about his recent dating history. It didn't serve the investigation, at this point. If Tony was determined to conceal his personal life from his co-workers, he would respect his privacy for now.

More importantly, they had no leads and no idea what had happened to Tony. Apart from the confirmation of Tony's blood on the driver's side window, which indicated a probable head injury, there was no indication of any other injuries. Gibbs was worried and he wanted to hurt someone, badly. He just didn't know who!

pagebreakpeagebreakpagebreak 

Tony groaned, as he slowly swam back towards consciousness. Every inch of him ached, especially his head. His vision was blurry and when he tried to sit up, he moaned and lost consciousness again. Finally, when he regained consciousness a second time, he found he was lying in a king-sized bed in a cabin, which he didn't recognise. He had no idea where he was, or how he got here, but it felt like he'd fractured his collar bone and his ankle seemed like it had been sprained, at the very least. He hoped it was just sprained. He'd also had had enough concussions, to realise that he had a real doozy.

He blurrily opened his eyes wider, when he realised that someone was wiping his face, with a cool cloth. Tony's eyes widen even further, as recognition dawned. "What are you doing here and where are we?"

A/N Thank you, to everybody who is reviewing, alerting or favouriting this story. I would encourage all you lurkers to review too, as it really isn't a painful process :) Writing can be a very solitary pursuit, so getting feedback or even just a 'good job' comment is a huge incentive to keep writing, when the words aren't flowing easily on the page.

I have made a personal commitment to never abandon a story, as I know how frustrating it is to become invested in a story and then have it just stall, so rest assured I will alwats finish that which I start. I do know however, that when I get a PM or a review, it lifts me up. I guess, we writers are terribly insecure and need that constant affirmation that people like what we write and we also appreciate constructive criticism as well. Well, I do anyway... so perhaps I shouldn't make broad generalisations :)


	7. Chapter 7

Rating: M

Disclaimer: The NCIS characters apart from Sonata Gordon are not mine but if they were...

Warning: This story is rated M because it deals with adult themes. This and following chapters will deal with non consensual sex that may cause distress to some people. Reader discretion advised.

Appologies for confusion in the last chapter. I'm afraid FF took my page breaks out. Hopefully it will accept the page breaks in this chapter. :)

Running From The Demons

Chapter Six Bruised

He tried to sit up, as his collar bone protested fiercely, and a wave of nausea came over him. Sonata Gordon gently pushed him back and scolded him, firmly.

"You need to rest Tony, you're injured. Don't worry though, everything is going to be fine. I'm going to take good care of you." He started feeling groggy, as a familiar, but hated chemical sensation began to course through his veins. He saw that she was injecting a drug into an IV line, into his hand. He tried to fight it, but soon found everything blurring again, as he lost consciousness once more. The last thing that he remembered thinking, was that it wasn't a good idea to sedate someone with a concussion, before everything went dark again.

The next time he regained consciousness, he was alone. He inched over to the edge of the bed, before he cautiously stood up. Not carefully enough, he concluded, after collapsing in a heap on the floor. "_Guess I'm weaker than I thought_'" he murmured to himself. Although, the shocking pain in his ankle might have had something to do with it too, he chuckled, before sobering up, as he tried to figure out what the heck was going on. Try as he might, he couldn't manage to pick himself up, off the floor. He felt like Gumby, totally boneless and surprisingly weak. He was still lying there when Sona walked in several hours later, dressed in her hospital scrubs.

She quickly assessed the situation and managed to lever him up onto the bed with ease, considering his six foot two height and broad muscular frame, not withstanding his recent weight loss. She saw the question in his eyes, and smiled. "Tricks of the trade, Tony. Hauling patients around all the time builds up muscles, and knowing how to use leverage helps too."

After settling him comfortably back in the bed and wiping his sweaty face, she helped him sip some water. Sona carefully settled him back down again on the bed and administered some more sedatives. "Sleep Tony," she coaxed softly, as she fussed with his pillows. "I'll be here when you wake up and we'll talk."

_Good,_ he thought, _because I have lots of questions,_ as he again drifted into a drug induced state of nothingness.

Sona watched him as he slept, thanks to the cocktail of chemicals she was giving him. She was rather shocked at the physical changes in him that the past weeks of enduring the nightmare had wrought in his appearance. He had dropped far too much weight, while the shadows under his eyes from his lack of sleep were almost purple in colour. She thought they liked more like bruising against his abnormally pallid complexion.

Clearly if his tossing and turning, whimpering and moaning, was anything to go by, he was still being haunted by his nightmare, just as he had said. He needed help, and she was going to be the one to heal him. Once he was well again, they were going be a family, together.

Soon enough, he started to thrash about, wordlessly screaming out in terror, so she grabbed him in a hug and kept reassuring him forcefully that he was safe. She couldn't wake him though, with the amount of drugs he had on board. Finally, her mantra must have penetrated his terror and the drugs because he calmed down, although he didn't wake up. She tenderly bathed his sweat covered body, before slipping a fresh pair of scrub bottoms on him and then she settled into the bed, beside him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his good shoulder and fell asleep, content and safe.

RFTDRFTD

Tony became aware that there was someone curled up beside him in the bed. Someone, who was most decidedly female, and who wore a spicy, vanilla sort of scent, that seemed somewhat familiar to him. Definitely not Abby, he decided, smiling at the thought of her uniquely Abbyesque gunpowder perfume she had created in her lab, after that case with the smuggled emeralds.

He managed to open his eyes blearily, and found Sona curled up beside him, in an unfamiliar bedroom. I _guess we are still friends after all,_ he thought to himself. He couldn't remember though, how he had gotten there or what he was doing. Sona, sensing that he was awake, stirred and squirmed gently out of her embrace and smiled up at him. Tony was suddenly very aware of a pressing appointment with the bathroom and tried to get out of bed.

"What do you think you're doing Tony," she asked him in nurse mode.

"I need to go to the bathroom, Sona. Can you give me a hand, please?"

"Here Tony, use this, you're still too weak to walk all the way to the bathroom. Give it a day or two," she told him, gently giving him one of those hated urine collecting bottles they used in hospitals. He grimaced with distaste, but was too desperate to wait any longer, so he proceeded to relieve the strain on his aching bladder. Afterwards, he sighed with relief, and when Sona took the receptacle from him, he collapsed back on the bed, exhausted and confused.

"What's wrong with me Sona? Why are we here, and where is here, anyway?" He tried to focus his attention on her when she returned from emptying the urine bottle.

"Do you remember the crash Tony? You slammed your car into a tree, on the way home. The doctors think that it was caused by a micro sleep, that you fell asleep for a split second. They diagnosed you with exhaustion," she explained, soothingly. "You called me because you were worried about your job, if your boss found out about your psychological state. You have been struggling since you hurt your hand, Tony. "

"You aren't sleeping, having nightmares and you have lost a heap of weight. The doctor recommended that you take time off, to regain your strength and strongly recommended you see a psychiatrist. You refused counselling and signed yourself out Against Medical Advice." She paused, and glanced at him, to gauge his reaction.

Tony was frowning, as he tried to process what she was telling him. The bit about the car crash was familiar, in a fuzzy sort of way but the bit about the AMA and refusing to see a shrink sure sounded like him, he admitted, even though he couldn't remember it happening. "Why can't I remember anything Sona?" he asked her, worried that he really was, going crazy.

Sona laid her hand on his arm comfortingly, and said "you have a concussion, remember? Which means that short term memory loss and confusion is common, Tony. You may never remember the accident though. Don't worry about it; I'm here now, and I'll take good care of you." She smiled fondly at him before gently wrapping her arms around him, as she gave him a hug.

Trying to make sense of it all was making Tony feel nauseous. She must have noticed the green tinge to his face because she hurried out, returning to the bed with an emesis bowl, in case he needed to throw up. Hopefully, they could head off a bout of vomiting, though.

"Try and take some deep breaths, she advised him. "You have a cracked clavicle, that's your collar bone, and you want to avoid vomiting, if possible." She watched approvingly, as he started taking deep breaths and the green cast to his skin receded gradually.

"I want you to rest now, while I go and get some food ready for you." She saw him blanche at the thought of eating, but she scolded him gently.

"You have to start eating some food, and keep it down, Tony. Don't worry, I'm going to make some clear soup, which should be easy on the tummy and hopefully, it will stay down. Just call out, if you need me. How is the pain, do you want something?"

"I'm good for now Sona" He closed his eyes and although she could see despite what he said, that he was in a degree of pain, she decided to wait til he'd eaten, before she gave him something.

RFTDRFTD

Two days later

The effects of the concussion were waning, apart from the occasional headache. Sona had been pestering him, so he was trying to eat. The clears soups that she was making for him were staying put about fifty percent of the time, but the nightmares if anything where getting worse.

Sona kept his ankle iced and strapped it for him, so that he could stand briefly. Leaning heavily on her, he even managed to take a few steps to the chair by the window. Tony was very grateful to be out of the bed, for a while. Sitting up, even for a few hours, left him feeling drained, and he was becoming increasingly, dependent upon her. Not just for his physical needs, but also emotionally, which was the last thing, he ever wanted.

He tried to fight against it, because he knew that he shouldn't be using her like this, but he couldn't help himself. Between crashing his car and the damned dream, he was just so damned messed up! He felt like he was one step away from losing what was left of his sanity. When she gently leaned in and pressed her lips against his and stroked his hair as she helped him stand up, he found his body responding to her, even though he knew that it was wrong. Sona smiled dreamily, as she finally released his lips and wrapped him in a hug.

So soon after the kiss, he found himself painfully aware of her body pressed up against his chest and he fought desperately to control his reaction. For someone who always needed to be in control of every aspect of his life, no doubt, because of his helplessness as a child, he was frustrated that he was losing more and more control, over every facet of his life. Beginning a relationship with Sona was wrong; he knew it and he wanted to do the right thing, for a change. He never wanted to hurt someone, like he had done with Jeanne. Sona deserved better.

He thought about his dream, which was slowly destroying everything he held dear. It was time to do something about it, before he destroyed Sona's life, as well as his own. He would never be able to return to work until he faced his dream, instead of running away. This was wrong, he should never have involved Sona in his mess, and he was angry at himself, for doing it. What the hell was wrong with him, anyway. His father was so right, he was weak and he would destroy anyone that tried to help him.

He glanced around the cabin, which Sona had told him had been left to her by her fiancé, Mark. It was comfortable without being lavishly appointed, yet it was certainly quiet and peaceful, he thought. He wondered how far they were, from other people and if they might have a phone he could use. He hadn't heard any traffic or noise associated with urban sprawl, just the sounds of nature. He resolved he would ask Sona more about their location, if he could find the energy. His stamina was seriously impaired right now, and he felt like a septuagenarian.

Later that night, as Sona lay beside him in the bed, Tony tried very gently to put some distance between them. He knew that she had feelings for him and if he was honest, he felt more for her than he should, but he was determined not to hurt her. He would control himself. He would rather die than be the cause, of any more pain than she had already endured.

"Sona I was thinking today - I feel like I'm slipping away. Losing what little sanity, I have left. It's time for me to stop being a pitiful weakling, and to face up to this nightmare, before it destroys me, and drags you down with me."

She looked lovingly into his eyes and said, "Tony, stop putting yourself down all the time. I'll help you; some proper nursing and good old fashioned TLC can work miracles. Didn't I already tell you, that I would be here for you?" she told him, tenderly.

Tony smiled at her, gently. "Sona, I think that I need to see someone. God knows, I hate shrinks, but this time, I think I need to see one. Can I use your cell phone? I guess my phone was broken in the crash. I want to get Ducky to find someone who specialises in sleep disturbances and nightmares. Someone who can help me figure out why I keep having the dream over and over again, and why it came back, again."

Sona frowned for a moment. "Of course you can use my phone but there's no cell phone coverage up here, Tony. How about I call Ducky when I go down to Bethesda tomorrow? I have to work one more shift tomorrow and then I'm off on leave for a while. I can explain and get him to find someone for you."

"Where is this place, exactly, Sona?"

"We are about an hour's drive, north of the city, but it is pretty deserted up here and not really set up for communication. Mark used it as a getaway so he wasn't bothered by the lack of cell phone or television reception, but it has its compensations. "

"What about a landline or is there a neighbour around who has a phone?" he asked, hopefully.

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Tony."

"Okay, well I guess if you could call Ducky for me, I would appreciate it. It might take him a few days to find someone but then again, Ducky knows so many people, you can never underestimate him. Just explain about the nightmare, because I didn't tell anyone at work."

"What about your friend Abby?" she asked, curiously.

"Nope, Abby probably knows more about me than anyone else alive, but I never told her much about the dream. Just, that I was having trouble sleeping. I didn't want to even think about it, let along talk about it. "He glanced at her from under his ridiculously long eye lashes and confessed shamefully.

"It scares me more than anything I've ever encountered. I feel like prying into it, might kill me or send me over the edge. But if I don't try to figure it out, I will go crazy."

"Don't worry about it Tony, you know I want to help. Now, go to sleep, you need to rest. She hugged him fiercely, as he gave an agonised groan.

"I know Sona; I really wish I could get some decent sleep. I don't know how," he finished forlornly.

Sure enough, within an hour of drifting to sleep, he was once again ensnared in the familiar nightmare. He awoke to find himself clinging to Sona, with tears running down his face as he cried out in terror and dread. Before he knew it, she was kissing his tears away while reaching out to stroke his bare chest. Sona's hand quickly descended lower, reaching inside his scrubs, fondling an intimate part of his anatomy, which began to respond reflexively, despite his protestations.

Nerve endings were being stimulated by Sona's touch and neurons began firing along nerve pathways which raced toward his brain, even though her advances were uninvited and not wanted. He tried to stop her but her hand was moving rapidly along his penis coaxing it into an erection, while he shook his head and cried out hoarsely, "No Sona, please stop, Don't! We can't do this."

She didn't seem to hear him, her expression was filled with longing, and she continued to touch him as she quickly shed her night wear."Don't worry Tony, I'll take care of you," she cooed as she quickly straddled him and lowered herself on his erection and proceeded to ride him with increasing intensity, while he closed his eyes, appalled at what he was doing. He tried to push her away but his body simply wouldn't co-operate, he was too weak and uncoordinated to stop Sonata, who was absolutely focused on obtaining her goal.

He wasn't even wearing a condom, he thought brokenly. How could he be so stupid and let this happen? In spite of himself and his weakness, his body became a slave to the primal part of his anatomy and his resistance was ineffective as he felt her climax and seconds later he ejaculated, spilling his seed into her. As she collapsed on top of him, hitting his cracked collar bone, he welcomed the sharp knifing pain that enveloped him. He deserved to be hurt for what he had done to Sona. He should have stopped it, not let it happen in the first place, but he was too weak and now he was going to give her more sorrow.

Sona remembered his fractured clavicle and she rolled off him, snuggling into his side as she dreamily wondered if they had started a baby tonight. She didn't notice, that he cried silent tears of self loathing, never even heard him as he had cried out as he came, "oh God Sona I am so, so sorry."

Tony lay awake for the rest of the night, wretched with despair as he realised that everything that his father had predicted was coming true. He didn't dare fall asleep, he couldn't trust himself. He wondered how he could get away from this place, before he destroyed Sona. He knew he was pitifully weak, partly because of his lack of food and sleep deprivation over the past weeks, but he still felt that there must be something else that was wrong. Apart from his sprained ankle and fractured collar bone, that was. He needed to get away from her, to save her from him, before he destroyed her, like every other woman in his life.

RFTDRFTD

Tony seemed drained and depressed the next day, and Sona was concerned about leaving him alone, while she worked her shift at the hospital. He did eat some soup and even had a couple of mouthfuls of the pureed apples, she made for him but it didn't stay down long, before he started vomiting once more. He soon found himself caught up in a bout of cyclic vomiting, long after he had voided the meagre contents of his stomach. Sona decided that to give him some metaclopramide, an anti-emetic, to control his vomiting and when it finally abated, he became even more detached and lethargic afterwards.

Tony really needed to sleep and Sona was worried that in her absence, he might try and get up and overdo things, or try and wander around outside. He was in no condition to look after himself; he needed protecting and she was determined that she was going to do just that. She thought it was best to give him a mild sedative, to knock him flat, while she wasn't there. At least that way, she wouldn't have to worry about him while she was working. She pushed away the thought that he wouldn't be able to wake up if he was sedated and started dreaming.

She really wished she didn't have to leave him. He needed to be watched over, but she needed to keep his friends at bay, and that meant turning up for work. At least for a while, anyway after he had joined her, to recuperate at the cabin. His friends had failed to look after him properly. He had lost so much weight and he was so gaunt and exhausted.

He needed someone, to love him and take proper care of him, but she knew that his teammates, and especially that Abby person, would try to take him away from her. They didn't understand just how much they loved each other, and how they were destined to be together.

RFTDRFTD

Meanwhile At NCIS

"More than forty eight hours after DiNozzo's abduction and we have no leads," Gibbs concluded ferociously. "I want something people," he shouted, his face approaching purple in hue. "What about those files, McGee. Surely, you must have found something?"

McGee regarded his boss, nervously; he wished Tony was here to handle Gibbs when he was this difficult. No one else knew what to do when he got like this. He gave himself a head smack in disgust. If Tony was here, then Gibbs wouldn't be looking to rip everyone that talked to him, a new one. _Maybe Gibbs needed to have an intense conversation with the punching bag, down in the gym so he could burn off his frustrations,_ thought Tim. Wisely though, he refrained from expressing his thoughts.

"Ziva's working on yours ,while I concentrate on Tony's, but no one is jumping up at us."

Ziva dived in. "Tony's last call before the accident was to Guido's Pizza Place, to order a pizza that he never picked up. There are no calls on his cell or landline that shared light on what his secret was." she concluded.

"Its shed light, not shared Ziva." Seeing Gibbs' face once again turning purple with fury, McGee hastened to add," There is no sign that he was being blackmailed or that he had received any unexplained deposits of money, either Boss."

"Could Tony be involved in an undercover operation gone bad, Gibbs?" Ziva asked.

Gibbs shook his head. " Not as far as I can tell, Ziva."

"Maybe he was seconded, to another agency. It would explain his exhaustion," Ziva ventured tentatively, with a sideways glance at Gibbs to observe his reaction."

His face darkened at the thought, but they all remembered when Tony was working undercover to bring down 'The Frog' and how no one had had a clue, except for the director. If someone had screwed with Tony again, Gibbs would rip them a new one and that was just for starters.

All he said was, "if he is working undercover, without telling me he's going to wish he was dead, when I get my hands on him."

A/N Thanks to all my readers for the reviews, alerts and favs :) Specially thanks to guest reviewers and to the lurker. I feel so honoured LOL.

Thanks to Inkybella for beta'ing this chapter into shape when it come to my punctuation which is my beta noire, I'm afraid :( Also big thank you to BuckeyeGirl00000 and Inkybella for the valuable feedback on the sensitive topic of sexual assault and my portrayal of it. I was at pains not to trivialise or sensationalise it in anyway.


	8. Chapter 8

Rating:M

Disclaimer: NCIS doesn't belong to me.

Warning: This chapter also contains adult themes related to sexual assault and generalised abuse.

Running From The Demons

Chapter 7 Broken

Sona was glad to be back at the cabin at last after finishing up her shift at Bethesda. She couldn't wait to give Tony the kisses she had been imagining all day. When she walked into the bedroom and found the bed empty, her heart began to pound, before she heard a soft moan and discovered him on the floor beside the bed. His scrub bottoms were soaked with urine and he was also covered in sweat and vomitus, indicating that his rest had not been peaceful while she was gone. He had obviously tried to make his way to the bathroom and collapsed on the floor.

His pupils where dilated and his breath was rapid and shallow, so she decided not to use any more sedatives and give the previous doses a chance to clear his system. It was possible that due to his overall physical condition, his liver and kidney function was impaired and he wasn't metabolising drugs as well as he should. His weight loss could easily explain any toxic effects and she decided that any drugs used, needed to be given at the same dose as one would use for an elderly person who could easily overdose on a normal dose of meds. In lieu of blood tests to check his liver and kidney enzymes, she would reduce the dose of his meds and observe him more carefully.

Sona quickly stripped his scrubs off him before getting him back on the bed. She needed to clean him up and get some fluid and nourishment into him ASAP. He tried to fight her when she touched him and especially as she removed his pants when she began to sponge him down with warm water. Tony's struggles were impeded by being pitifully weak, although his dilated pupils and depressed breathing indicated that drugs prevented him putting up more of a fight.

Finally, Tony subsided, too weak to fight her and passively submitted to her as she washed him, before dressing him once more in fresh scrub bottoms. She then changed the bedding and settled him back into bed. Sona noticed that he was avoiding making eye contact with her and seemed even more withdrawn than when she left him. Well, after the initial attempts to prevent her touching him, that was. He wouldn't talk at all at first, although eventually he looked over at her and asked the question that had been uppermost in his mind since she'd returned.

"What did Ducky say, Sona?"

Sona looked at him sympathetically. "I didn't talk to him Tony. They said he was off on a case with your team and would be back in a day or two. I didn't leave a message because I thought it was private. I can try him tomorrow or the next day."

"What about Abby, she would have been in the lab?"

"I'm so sorry Tony, I never thought to ask for her, but would she be able to help? It sounded like you needed Ducky's help."

"Maybe I should talk to Brad or Kristina. They would be able to do some research, I'm sure," he decided.

"Let's talk about it after we've eaten, Tony," Sona smiled gently. "You need to get your strength back again. I'm going to make you strong again."

"Sona", Tony began, "I don't think I can get my strength back until I deal with this, whatever it is. Unless I do something, I don't think I can survive. It's killing me," he finished brokenly.

"Oh Tony," she hugged him. "I'm not going anywhere. We'll face it together." He remained stiff in her arms and she looked at him, closely.

"Sona, I shouldn't have involved you in my problems. It isn't fair and I don't expect you to. You have enough to deal with on your own," he finished softly although she didn't seem to hear him. "I need to go back home, not run away like this. I need to contact my team."

"Come on, Tony, see if you can eat some soup. I've pureed some vegetables for you and I picked up some vitamins, plus protein powder today, too. We have to get you well, you know," Sona coaxed him. She flashed him a love-sick smile before bustling off to the kitchen.

RFTDRFTD

That night Tony was determined not to fall asleep. He kept biting his lip and digging his fingernails into his palms to prevent himself giving in to slumber. Finally, despite his most heroic efforts, he succumbed due to a combination of exhaustion and malnutrition, and his sleep brought predictable results. Yet again, the familiar dream began so innocently with him in his mother's embrace, before the sinister presence waited to ambush him and once again hold him hostage to his terror.

Sona was there, pulling him out of the nightmare, offering comfort as he left the dream behind. Unfortunately, her comfort rapidly progressed from consoling to torment as she began molesting him. Just like previously, it culminated with her straddling his thighs as he struggled feebly underneath her while he tried to avoid having intercourse. Apart from being sickened at what he was doing with her, he was frightened at how physically weak he had become. If anyone had told him a few months ago that a woman weighing approximately one hundred and twenty five pounds could overpower him and have her way with him, he would have had them committed.

Yet this was real. Despite his cries telling her to stop, that they couldn't do this, that it was wrong, that he wasn't wearing a condom, she seemed completely deaf to his pleas. Worse still, unlike the night before, her passion only seemed inflamed by his struggles and she coaxed him with her mouth and her tongue, all over his body as she encouraged a certain part of his anatomy, twice more over the course of the night, into performing again. As bad as he felt, he couldn't believe that she was able to coax his body into arousal so many times, but Sona was unrelenting. Finally some time before dawn, she finally collapsed against him, sated and ready to sleep.

Tony thought that it wasn't possible for him to hate himself more than he had after destroying Jeanne Benoit's life when he broke her heart, but he was wrong. If Tony had his Sig Saur on hand, he would have gladly shot himself for what he'd done to Sona. He knew she was damaged by losing her fiancé and unborn child, but he had been selfish enough to involve her following the crash, even though he suspected that she was developing feelings for him. He was the biggest scumbag and he deserved to rot in hell.

He just knew that he needed to get away from her, before he did any more to harm her. It was apparent that she was much more fragile than even he had initially suspected. He crawled out from under her, careful not to disturb her as he crept across the cabin. It never registered that he was naked or that he needed clothes and shoes. All he could think of was fleeing as fast and as far as he could. He stumbled drunkenly out the door, never stopping to consider for a minute that he might be under the influence of various narcotics. Almost reaching the limits of his weakened state, he lurched across the cabin's porch before falling down the stairs and collapsing in the dirt, unconscious.

RFTDRFTD

Sona found him early next morning, as the dawn's light alerted her that he was no longer beside her in bed. She found him suffering from exposure and refusing to speak. She helped him to stand and assisted him inside the cabin and back into bed. She proceeded to pile a mound of blankets on top of him, before starting him on warmed IV fluids, and finally snuggled back into the bed, her body draped around him to help warm him with her own body heat. Gradually he lost the bluish tinge to his extremities and once he started shivering, she heaved a sigh of relief. He was beginning to warm up again.

Sona frowned, as she considered Tony's condition. Clearly he was a danger to himself in his current state because he obviously wasn't rational, so she needed to protect him. As the future father of her children, she needed to take better care of him, but she didn't want to sedate him constantly either. He really needed to talk to her about his nightmare and they needed to make a baby together and then, everything would work out fine. They would settle down together and they would take care of each other and their children.

She decided that it was time for some tough love for Tony's own good. She retrieved the set of handcuffs that she found on him when she had undressed him after his car accident. At least she would be able to keep him in bed. It might even spice up their lovemaking, she thought dreamily. She wished that he would be being less passive when they had sex but Tony was right, it was time to get to the bottom of his dream and he needed to get healthy again. Once he recovered his strength it would all be fine.

RFTDRFTD

Abby entered Autopsy searching for Gibbs. She had looked everywhere else and she was hoping to find him with Ducky. Jimmy was there, doing inventory, and he brightened as he as he caught sight of Abby.

"Hi Abby, any news yet?" he inquired hopefully.

Abby shook her head, blinking back tears that seemed to be always threatening to erupt ever since Tony's disappearance. "Nothing, Jimmy and I'm getting a feeling on the hinky-metre scale that is right off the stratosphere. Is Ducky here?"

"He's in his office, Abby."

Abby nodded and went in search of the kindly, eccentric medical examiner who was her friend and Tony's. She found him genteelly sipping his usual Earl Grey tea from his fine bone china cup and saucer. He was definitely an anachronism in the world of ceramic mugs and teabags. Ducky smiled in welcome and beckoned her inside.

"And to what do I owe this honor, Miss Scuito?" he inquired in his suave and courteous manner. "Can I offer you a cup of tea?"

"Thanks, Duckman, I'm fine. I was hoping that Gibbs was with you but I guess not, hey?" Ducky shook his head to indicate that he didn't know the whereabouts of Gibbs. She looked at Ducky and asked, "Are you busy, Duckman? I've been meaning to talk to you about something."

"Certainly, Abigail take a seat and tell me how I can help. Is this about young Anthony?"

"Yeah Ducky, I was wondering if Tony's nightmares might have something to do with his disappearance. I'm guessing that you know more about Tony's childhood than anyone, apart from me."

Ducky snorted inelegantly. "Tony has dropped plenty of hints over the years, especially to a bunch of investigators, if they wanted to connect the dots," he spluttered "but I suppose having access to Anthony's medical records gives me a somewhat unique perspective. I always suspected that Tony shared a lot more than the odd snippet disguised as a humorous dinner party anecdote with you, Abigail," he stated archly.

"Yeah, Duck, he trusted me with a lot of stuff, but not everything. It takes a lot for him to show people what he thinks of as his weaknesses. The flaws that he displays are intentional, like armour, and are pretty much just a front to stop people digging into his past. I would never think of betraying his trust normally, but with him missing, I don't see that it hurts to talk to you when you already know about his history. I just know he is in danger."

"I can't betray patient confidentiality but we can speak in generalities, my dear."

"I guess what I'm wondering Ducky, is if his childhood nightmares are connected to his abduction. Do you think that we haven't gone back far enough in looking for the kidnapper? Do you think there is any way that Senior might be involved somehow?"

"Oh my, Abigail! That is quite an interesting question. Tell me, what makes you think that?"

"Ducky, my hinky meter was screaming at me that night in the hospital, when Tony injured his hand. I was ordered back here to process evidence, but Abby's Gut was telling me to stay with Tony and not let him out of my sight. Maybe Senior came and saw him that night or he sent someone. Tony hasn't been sleeping since that night and that usually means nightmares. For it to rock him so badly, I think that it's related to his childhood, not a case. And none of the old case stuff has led us anywhere. If only I had made Tony tell me about his nightmare. It has to be something pretty bad. Tony's dad hurt him, Ducky."

Ducky nodded slowly and said, "I was afraid of that, Abigail. Tony had a lot of mishaps as a boy, but I'm not sure that it helps us now. What has Anthony told you about his mother?" Ducky watched her intently.

"Not a lot Ducky. He said she died when he was eight years old, that she used to drink too much. You've heard the story about his sea monkeys?"

"Indeed, so tragic and I was quite appalled by the teams' insensitive reaction to that information when he shared it. You'd think they could detect the genuine pathos even in that small detail. People cannot seem to see beyond the wealth and privilege and it engenders envy, I'm afraid."

"But Tony's mother is dead, Ducky; so how could this have anything to do with his disappearance? What is it you know about his mother?"

"I have nothing tangible, my dear. It is purely supposition and of course, Ducky's Gut, if you will. As you would say, something feels hinky about his mother's death, but I know nothing for certain.

RFTDRFTD

Being handcuffed to the bed by his good arm, made Tony realise just how troubled Sona really was. How could he have been stupid enough to involve her in his problems? He had pushed her over the edge. What had he been thinking, calling her after crashing his car instead of one of the team? Why hadn't he called Abby or Gibbs? It also was becoming clearer by the minute that Sona had lost touch with reality and truly believed they were in a relationship. He also wondered why his team hadn't come looking for him.

What had Sona told them when she called them and told them he was ordered to rest after the accident? Did she tell them he didn't want to see him? Now he was wondering if she had even talked to Ducky or had she imagined it? He was frustrated because he needed help and obviously Sona needed help, too. The problem was that he didn't think that he would be able to convince her of that fact. She heard only what she wanted to hear.

Sona had stopped going in to the hospital to work. Tony only hoped that it might send up a red flag to someone at Bethesda. Surely Gibbs would come looking for him soon when he didn't answer his messages. Abby called or texted him constantly every day and when he was away, sent multiple emails, so surely she would notice that he was missing. At least he really hoped so, because he wasn't sure how much longer he could last.

Sona had become utterly obsessed with having sex with him and the more he tried to fight her off, the more it seemed to encourage her. It was as if she misinterpreted his attempts to prevent intercourse from occurring as him actively participating, which was apparently increasing her libido accordingly. She kept him handcuffed and the cuffs were so tight that he couldn't even pull a Gibbs and dislocate his thumb to get free. He didn't even have anything handy to pick the lock.

Even smashing the sturdy wooden bedpost that the cuffs were attached to was beyond his ability as he was too weak. He could only hope that she would re-cuff him loosely enough just once so he could escape and get help for them both. As the days past, the nightmares began to cause what felt like flashbacks while he was awake. It was simply absurd though, and proved that he was losing his sanity, because it was just a terrible dream, after all. He would remember if something like that had ever happened.

Meanwhile, Sona continued to force him to have sex, day and night, especially after he would wake up in terror from the dream. He had given up hope of ever being found in time and he began to disassociate during the continual assaults. He became more withdrawn at other times too and had stopped eating completely. Sona threatened to insert a nasogastric tube to feed him if he didn't start eating, but he ignored her threats and grew weaker than ever as his body continued to feed off its own reserves. His surplus fat reserves had long since been metabolised and he was starting to break down lean muscle mass as his weight continued to plummet.

Finally, Sona decided that she had no choice but to tube feed him, so she expertly inserted a nasogastric tube through his nostril and down into the lower end of his esophagus. She was able to use a specially formulated liquid diet to begin getting calories into him, although he continued to throw up much too frequently for her liking, and the nightmares and flashbacks continued. Much to her concern, he wouldn't or couldn't tell her what it was that was terrifying him so badly.

Every time she thought he was going to weaken and reveal what was so terrifying, it would end up with him experiencing a panic attack and he would refuse to discuss it again. Even worse, he began to whimper and pull away from her whenever she touched him. She needed to fix him, and do it soon or like he predicted, he wasn't going to make it.

Sona couldn't understand what had happened. They had been so happy together. They were ready to work through all that business with Tony's nightmare and they were having fun making babies together. She was going to take a pregnancy test tomorrow but she was already hoping that it would confirm what she already felt, deep down. Maybe when Tony knew he was going to be a father, it would help to pull him out of his depression. She just wanted him to take care of her and their child.

Sona wanted the guy who had taken her out to dinner and held her gently in his arms and comforted her when she cried. She longed for him to make love to _her_, for a change. She could tell he would be a kind and giving lover, but she knew that he wasn't in great physical shape. Despite her best efforts, he had lost even more weight and he had lost the spark that made her fall in love with him. She had to help him get it back again.

The more withdrawn that Tony became, the more obsessed Sona became with getting him to acknowledge their relationship. She tried to seduce him with sexy lingerie and role play. She tried getting kinky with him during sex, even talking about their babies, but he withdrew even further into his shell, and his physical deterioration grew steadily worse each day. Finally, she found herself becoming jealous about everyone in his life that might threaten their future together. Although she had told Tony about Mark, he had never said much about his former girlfriends except to say he had had his heart broken by someone a few years ago and it was his fault.

Sona thought back to that night at the hospital when they first met. His friend Abby was there with him and she seemed to be pretty darn friendly with Tony. Far too friendly for her to just be a good friend. She wondered if Tony had feelings for Abby or if they had ever been in a relationship before. She could tell that Abby was attracted to her man but were the feelings reciprocated?

Maybe she needed to take care of Abby, so that Tony would love her again. They were going to have a baby together; she had done the home pregnancy test three times to be sure. She couldn't lose him now but she hadn't told him their wonderful news yet. She was waiting for the perfect moment to announce the joyful news. Sona couldn't wait to see his face when he found out what they had created together.

Later, when she started to her night-time assault on Tony, he shrunk away from her like she had some sort of disease or something. Sona slapped him, hoping that he would respond to her, even if in anger, just as long as he stopped ignoring her. She was getting desperate, feeling like he was slipping further and further away from her, with each passing hour.

A/N Thank-you to Ibinkybella for beta-ing this chapter, Any remaining errors are mine :) Thanks for everyone who reviewed, alerted and favourited last chapter. I especially wanted to thank my guest reviewer who gave me precious feedback on the the previous chapter. I really appreciated you honesty and experience. Your review meant so much to me and I admire your courage.

Just a heads up that at present, Tony might not be up to his usual, sharply perceptive self when it comes to figuring out is going on with Sona. I just wanted to say, that there is many details to which Tony and the readers, are not yet privy too. All will be revealed at the appropriate time.


	9. Chapter 9

Rating: M

Disclaimer: Don't own NCIS or profit from characters .

Warning: This story deals with mental illness and sexual assault

Running From The Demons

Chapter 8 Resolve

Sona was becoming more volatile and desperate as Tony continued to withdraw from her. Now, in her desperation, she was becoming more physically abusive during her assaults as well. Yet despite everything she did, she failed to evoke a reaction in him at all. Tony was hiding in the tiny room deep inside his head, where he used to go when his father would drink too much and take his anger and self loathing out on his convenient and helpless son.

People had often wondered why Tony seemed oblivious to being beaten and why he would refuse to show any type of reaction, save running off his mouth. A strategy that seemed to only serve to egg on his tormentors. What they didn't understand, was that he always went to his safe place, where he couldn't be harmed. Now, he was going there most of the time, because it was the only way for him to cope with what was going on. He was in there now, as he tried to avoid dealing with being raped yet again by Sona. He simply couldn't endure knowing how his own selfishness had caused all of this. Sona was out of control and it was going to end badly for both of them.

Tony couldn't bear to think about what would happen to Sona when he didn't make it. Losing her fiancé had caused her so much grief already. He knew that he had dropped a significant amount of weight and unless something drastic changed, he didn't see how much longer he could hang on. The only way he could begin to cope with his situation was to escape to his safe place where Sona's constant assaults and his crushing guilt about causing this mess couldn't touch him. He had lost control over every other facet of his existence, but thanks to his father, he still had his safe place where he could go. Nothingness had never felt so good.

Tony could hear her yelling at him from far away but he wasn't listening. That was until, as if from deep under water, he heard Sona scream out Abby's name. Why was she talking about Abby? Maybe she was finally going to come and take him home.

He focused his eyes on her blearily and spoke his first words in days. "Abby? Where is she, is she coming here?"

Sona narrowed her eyes, suspicious that he had responded to Abby's name when he was so unresponsive to everything else. Maybe she was right.

"I was saying that maybe you have feelings for Abby."

Tony's gut clenched nervously as he shook his head. "Abby is my best friend, she is like my sister," he said cautiously, wondering why he felt so worried.

Sona shook her head and screamed at him. "You don't have any sisters or brothers Tony, so how can you say you love her that way? You have feelings for her."

A tiny part of him acknowledged this small pearl of wisdom but he pushed it aside, sensing the very real threat to his friend. Would Sona hurt Abby if she thought he loved her, because he had always loved Abby, they just weren't in love? Then again, he couldn't believe that she would keep him prisoner and try to use him to get pregnant either. That she might become delusional, believing that they were having a relationship together, while keep him hand-cuffed to the bed. The sick feeling in his gut was enough to take the threat to Abby seriously.

He was also beginning to suspect that Sona was also giving him drugs to make him compliant, although his inability to hold down food and his nightmares might equally explain why he was such a mess. He was extremely close to going crazy. It wasn't as if mental illness didn't run in the family, after all.

If anything happened to Abby because of him, Tony was certain that he could not survive intact. Abby was the best thing to happen to his life. He had never had a friend who was able to penetrate his defences so completely and effortlessly and yet not be repelled by his many foibles. He would gladly throw himself in front of bullets or buses to keep her from getting hurt in any way. She had kept him from sinking completely into a morass of self doubt and despair during his banishment from all that he held dear, during his time afloat. He knew that Abby kept up a concerted campaign with Gibbs to get him back with the other re-united members of the team even, when others had forgotten him while he was in purgatory.

He had never before experienced the type of friendship with a female that Abby had offered him so graciously and easily. Tony wasn't a fool. He knew that losing his significant female maternal figure at such an early age, combined with her psychopathology, had caused substantial and permanent damage to his development. It likely contributed to his inability to maintain lasting, committed relationships with women. Apart from Abby that is. Despite his myriad of flaws, she had stayed loyal to him despite his many stuff-ups.

So for Tony, it was a no-brainer, that he should be protective of what was such a precious and important relationship. Abby was that rare individual who made the world a truly better place, and not just by her work as a forensic scientist. It was also because of her friendship, generosity and because her general positivity made everyone around her feel better, no matter what. It shook him out of his lethargy to even consider that Sona might want to hurt Abby because of him.

Somehow, Tony had to protect Abby. He needed to warn her, but how could he do that when he was a prisoner? Sure he was a Federal Agent, who under normal circumstances should be able to overcome Sona and escape, but Tony knew that he wasn't exactly firing on all points lately. He was crippled emotionally and physically, which made him wonder fearfully exactly how he was going to ensure Abby's safety. There was no way that she would ever expect Sona to be a threat to her, hinky- detector notwithstanding. Which left him with only one option, as far as he could see right now. He needed to stall for time, in the hope that Gibb's would find him, so that meant he needed to use his considerable ability to deflect and obfuscate in the mean time.

Sona had begun to unravel when he had given up on getting rescued. As he withdrew, more and more each day, she became more desperate to hold onto her delusional world that she had built up. Abby was a new fixation as she tried to explain why he was rejecting her, and although the thought was now firmly planted, perhaps he could distract her enough that it would die down if she was occupied. If she believed that everything was fine and dandy in '_Sonaland_' there was a strong possibility that her Abby fixation would be forgotten. As long as he didn't disturb her delusion in any way, he could hopefully keep Abby from harm.

Tony was under no illusion that in order to do that, he was going to have to compound his sins and lie to Sona about his feelings for her. Pretending to be in a relationship with her was a despicable thing to do to someone who was obviously ill and deluded. Yet he couldn't see a legitimate alternative to deceiving her. When it had just been his own welfare at stake, he would never consider lying to Sona.

He knew that he could never love her after what had happened between them up in the cabin, but it didn't mean that he didn't care deeply about what happened to her. Nor did he want to see her hurt more than she was going to be when this was finished one way or another. The only two outcomes that he could see at this point was that someone found him while he was still alive, or he didn't make it. Either way, Sona was going to go into meltdown and he simply couldn't find the will to try to save himself up until now.

All bets were off now! Tony may not have had the strength to live for himself, but he would live in order to do what had to be done to save Abby. She was a totally innocent party in all of this and he knew he was going to hurt Sona by lying, but felt that there wasn't a choice. Better she be hurt than Abby be killed. It would be the death of Sona too if she managed to hurt the Goth. And the only way that Tony could think of to lie to her was to employ his considerable skills as an undercover operative to help him get through it. Otherwise, he didn't think that he could deal with his physical revulsion and the negative emotions that she had evoked in him.

He had always found it easy to subsume himself into fictional characters and lose the parts of himself that he considered his flaws. He did it all the time. Even when he was at work, he created a persona that he had honed over the years that help deflect from anyone looking too closely for his weakness. Give people a few identifiable flaws to focus on, and they never bothered to look any further to find the truly vile character defects that he had in such abundance.

Now, Tony needed to call on all his skill to piece himself together. He wasn't sure how long he could paper over all the cracks, because while he was adept at pretending that he wasn't affected by his numerous emotional wounds, this time around was different. He was physically frail, too afraid to sleep and holding onto his emotions by the finest of threads and he wasn't sure how long he could hold it together. Gibbs had better find him soon because this wasn't going to be a long term under cover Op.

_What a freaking irony_, he thought hysterically, that the last time he became involved with a woman while he was undercover, it did not end well, causing her and himself permanent heartache. Now, in order to safeguard his friend, he was going to have to actively engage in an undercover operation. One that would cause untold damage to someone he cared about, in order to save someone that he loved.

_Stop being a weak coward Anthony,_ he raged at himself, _call a spade a spade_. _What you really mean is that you are going to lie to Sona about being in a relationship with her, in order to keep Abby safe. At least be honest about what you are going to do._

The question was though, could he do this to Sona, knowing he was hurting her, when she was already so damaged by life? He knew that he would never be able to forgive himself for hurting her even more than he had already. That said, he had to draw Sona away from his friend, if it meant that it kept Abby safe. Sona would never normally harm Abby. She was a nurse after all and a caring person, yet her behavior had become terribly unpredictable since his accident. While he was having a lot of difficulty concentrating and couldn't string two thoughts together to save his life, deep in his gut was the fear that Abby was in terrible danger.

Tony could see absolutely no other alternative but to buy time for his team to locate him. That being the case, he needed to distract Sona from her newest obsession, which was that Abby was a threat to their domestic bliss. The only way that he could do that, was if he had to become the attentive boyfriend that Sona wanted. His stomach roiled, at the thought of what that would mean and he wondered if he could pull it off especially the intimate side of it.

Even the thought of it made him want to start vomiting and never stop. This was a million times worse than crossing that threshold with Jeanne, and that had almost broken him. He recalled how Ziva had suggested that he sleep with a suspect attorney as a means of getting information about an investigation, when they found a severed head in a stolen car. He had assumed it was a joke until she admitted that she had done it before and Gibbs chimed in, that he had done it too.

It totally rocked him because he couldn't see how they could be so blasé about it. Even now, knowing that he had strong feelings for Jeanne, he loathed himself for sleeping with her and he realised now that even at that stage, he had already fallen in love with her. With Sona, it somehow seemed even worse because although he really cared about her and felt awful guilt for making her delusional, he was utterly repulsed by her physical presence and recoiled if she touched him in even an asexual way. Even thinking about anything more intimate made his skin crawl and his pulse race, and he recognised the familiar symptoms of a panic attack.

Yet even now, the fact that she made him feel physically ill didn't stop him from feeling like a complete shit for making her so delusional. Clearly, he had led her on, despite never intending to. Tony still had little memory of his car accident. It simply never occurred to him to suspect that it wasn't an accident or that Sona was capable of running him off the road.

Even if he had, it was likely that he would still find some way to blame himself for that too. Self-blame had always been an immutable fact of life for him. Thanks to the damaging narrative that had been the enduring legacy of Senior's influence over his son, Tony was quick to apportion personal culpability for anything bad that happened. Constantly told by word and deed by his most significant male role model that he was worthless and a burden, those messages had imprinted indelibly upon the fabric of who he became, as an adult. It had left him ripe for taking on the burdens of the world.

He tried to find any other way to cope with this terrible nightmare which he found himself in. The irony of the situation did not escape him that his nocturnal nightmare had resulted in him being plunged into a waking one that he could no more escape from than the one dogging him from childhood. If he had access to a quick way to end his life, he would do it like a shot. Surely if he was dead, Sona and any obsessions she harboured toward Abby would no longer be relevant anymore, yet apart from starving, which was already a possibility, he couldn't see a way to speed things along. Chained to the bed had cut down his options dramatically.

_Think... Anthony, _he berated himself._ You have to find some way to pull off this deception. If anything happens to Abby, it will destroy three lives and be on your head. You have to suck it up because this isn't about you. Think of Abby and Sona and what will happen if you don't stop acting like a weak, pathetic creature. _

_You know what Gibbs would do to you if he knew how feeble you're acting. HE would do whatever it took to keep both of them from being destroyed. You already know what you have to do. You have to act your way out of the mess you've created, just like you always do, when the pain get too much. You Are Fine! Think of it as just another undercover Op and get your head outta your ass._

Tony knew that he was an excellent undercover operative. He usually relished the opportunity to become someone else and fool the people around him. He was a skilled actor, probably could have carved out a career in Hollywood if he had been so inclined, but even when he was undercover with the worst dirt bags, Tony still found himself forming attachments with his marks. Despite his brash exterior, he had a deep vein of empathy, that while it made him such a superb undercover operative, it also made him uniquely vulnerable to identify with the people he fooled.

It always took him time at the end of an Op to return to his real self and detach from the persona he had adopted and the ties he had forged. This was going to be so much worse because Sona was a victim here, not a criminal and even though a part of Tony, the cop-part, knew about the Stockholm Syndrome and the victimology of sexual assault, his emotions were caught up in guilt and concern for his stalker. Having to deceive her, knowing just how much he was going to hurt her when she discovered his deceit, made it seem even more morally reprehensible. Unfortunately, Tony couldn't see another alternative, given his physical state, so he began to mentally prepare himself as he went through his usual routine, in priming himself to adopt an undercover identity.

Sona returned to the room, seemingly composed and Tony, despising himself, heartily made eye contact with her before flashing her a poor facsimile of his heart-stopping grin. Sona looked surprised but quickly responded by coming close and placing her hands in his hair, before moving in to kiss him passionately on the lips. Tony steeled himself not to recoil from her kiss as he forced himself to open his mouth as he felt her tongue prodding him to let her in. Fighting down the wave of nausea that overcame him, he wondered, if he was having this much trouble just letting her kiss him, how the devil could he succeed in actually playing the role of loving boyfriend? Sona didn't seem to be complaining, though. She finally pulled away from him with a dreamy expression, dilated pupils and rapid respiration. She studied him closely. "Are you feeling better now, Tony?" she asked.

"Yeah I guess, Sona. Maybe I could manage a small meal, if you're hungry," he said.

He hoped to delay anything more intimate, at least for a while, so he could try and get into a character. He thought that he should aim for the Professor DiNardo persona, the suave, smart and witty lover that made Jeanne fall in love with him. Of course, that op was a total disaster because almost from the get-go, he had fallen for her, just as hard as she had for him and in doing so, he had ruined both their lives. Of course there was no chance of that happening here, when all he wanted to do was hurl his guts up and curl up in the foetal position every time Sona touched him.

Perhaps, if he could convince himself he was with Jeanne, it might help, he thought, even though he was offended by the very idea and sent a silent apology to the woman he had wronged. Tony knew though, that a part of being an undercover operative was to do whatever you had to in order to survive. Even if in this case, it wasn't his survival he was concerned about. He was totally expendable but Abby was not!

So somehow he managed to swallow down the beef and vegetable soup and the protein drink that she had prepared for him and willed himself not to throw up. He was pretty certain that his loss of appetite and constant nausea and vomiting wasn't due to any physical ailment. It was more likely a result of his extreme emotional turmoil, exhaustion and constant fear. Adopting the persona of Tony DiNardo would maybe help him to suck it up and shove the fear and nightmares to the side, at least for a while, if he was focused hard enough on his role. He wasn't sure how long he could physically maintain the role but he had to buy time for a rescue or an escape. For his friend he would do what he had to, or die trying.

A/N Thanks to Ibinkybella for being the beta reader for this chapter and her much appreciated insights into the challenge that I set myself, in this chapter. Any remaining mistakes are mine.

At this point in the story, it seems appropriate to comment a little on the direction that the story is headed.

of loving boyfriend. Sona didn't seem to be complaining though. She finally pulled away from him with a dreamy expression, dilated pupils and rapid respiration. She studied him closely. "Are you feeling better now, Tony?" she asked.

"Yeah I guess, Sona. Maybe I could manage a small meal, if you're hungry," he said.

He hoped to delay anything more intimate, at least for a while, so he could try and get into a character. He thought that he should aim for the Professor DiNardo persona, the suave, smart and witty lover that made Jeanne fall in love with him. Of course, that op was a total disaster because almost from the get-go, he had fallen for her, just as hard as she had for him and in doing so, he had ruined both their lives. Of course there was no chance of that happening here, when all he wanted to do was hurl his guts up and curl up in the foetal position, every time Sona touched him.

Perhaps, if he could convince himself he was with Jeanne, it might help, he thought, even though he was offended by the very idea and sent a silent apology to the woman, he had wronged. Tony knew though, that a part of being an undercover operative was to do whatever you had to, in order to survive. Even if in this case it wasn't his survival he was concerned about. He was totally expendable but Abby was not!

So somehow he managed to swallow down the beef and vegetable soup and the protein drink that she had prepared for him and willed himself not to throw up. He was pretty certain that his loss of appetite and constant nausea and vomiting wasn't due to any physical ailment. It was more likely a result of his extreme emotional turmoil, exhaustion and constant fear. Adopting the persona of Tony DiNardo would maybe help him to suck it up and shove the fear and nightmares to the side, at least for a while, if he was focused hard enough on his role. He wasn't sure how long, he could physically maintain the role but he had to buy time for a rescue or an escape. For his friend he would do what he had to, or die trying.

A/N Big thank-you to Inkybella for beta-ing this chapter and providing valuable feedback on the challange that I set myself in this chapter. All remaining mistakes are mine.

At this point in the story, it seems appropriate to make a few comments. First, sexual assaults by female perpetrators upon male victims is rare r than other types of sexual assault but it is also well recognised, that the incidence is much higher than official crime statistics suggest. It simply doesn't get reported very often for a number of reason. Stigmatisation of survivors, misconceptions about sexual functioning and physical stimulation, shame and guilt by survivors and lack of empathy for the men/male minors all contribute to a situation that is far too frequently, swept under the carpet.

Finally thanks to everyone for reveiwing, their alerts and favouriting of the story.


	10. Chapter 10

Rating: M

Disclosure: I don't own these characters just borrowing them.

A/N For people who have been reading and following, I should probably apologise for the time between the uploading of this chapter and the last. The truth is that I have been having a deep and meaningful internal dialogue about whether to continue to post the final chapters of this story. In fact I have almost taken the story down several times. At the start of this first in a trilogy set of stories, I issued a warning that the subject matter was potentially disturbing to some people. The topic is dark, I realise but it is real and I have tried to raise awareness not sensationalise, with regard to the various issues arising from this story and the two latter stories.

In the end, with the support of three people, and I hope you know who you are and how extremely grateful I am for your encouragement not to change what I had written but to stay true to my vision, which swung the balance into me continuing. And in deference to other people who have in the past, reviewed and offered support, I decided to at the least, finish uploading the remainder of this story. Jury is still out on the last two stories in this trilogy, at this stage.

So I want to be very clear here once again that the subject matter is very dark and disturbing. Human beings can inflict terrible cruelty upon each one another and this story deals with sexual assault and mental illness. I strongly advise anyone who feels that these topics could cause them psychological distress to not read the rest of this story. To readers who are looking for a fast resolution of what is a complex situation, you should also read no further. In the last few chapters there will be information that holds many clues to questions about what has caused Tony's angst, which will answer many of the issues concerning his behaviour, that will be explored in the next piece in the series, if I proceed. And one final clarification, for readers who want Sir Leroy Jethro Gibbs to ride in on his white charger and rescue a broken damsel in distress aka Tony, you should also stop reading any further. I tend to write a complex and flawed Tony but for all his insecurities and neuroses, I still see him as essentially resilient and most definitely a survivor. Someone who has throughout his difficult life, had to watched his own six pretty darned effectively and he will also manage to save himself this time too. Consider that a somewhat mild spoiler if you like lol.

Sorry for such a convoluted rant. Blame that last paragraph on my feeling somewhat melancholy due to the 10th year Anniversary Bali Bombing Memorial Ceremony where 88 of our Aussies lost their lives and 202 died in total. Condolences to all the families and friends who lost loved ones on 12th October 2002.

Running From The Demons

Chapter Eight Best Laid Plans

Tony was using all of his defences and steely determination to stay in character while pushing aside Anthony DiNozzo's demons as best as he could. Whenever he felt a prelude of telltale fluttering in his chest that signalled the beginning of a flashback, he ruthlessly dug his fingernails into his hands, because pain helped him to stay focused and forced him to concentrate his attention on Sona. By giving her attention, he knew that she would want him to be demonstrative with her.

As hard as that was proving to be, it was still preferable to his flashbacks and demons, so he distracted himself with the lesser of two evils, although it was a close call between them. After all, he kept telling himself, guys who were gigolos must face similar issues. He could act, too, he had to.

By the time the inevitable moment occurred when Tony couldn't distract her any longer and which he'd been dreading, Sona appeared for bed dressed in barely-there lingerie. He tried to go to a place where he was zoned out but not totally unresponsive. He hoped that he would be able to pretend that he was not being forced to do something that offended every cell in his body. Pretend that he was with someone who had captured his heart, despite his best intention never to surrender it to anyone after Wendy had effectively left _it_, and him crushed and broken.

So he forced himself to endure, hoping his penance was enough to keep Abby safe, even when all he wanted was vomit repeatedly. Especially after he breathed a sigh of relief in the foolish belief that the torture was over only to have Sona dropped her bombshell. News that, when he heard it, split him into so many fractured pieces, he knew it would never be possible to find all of them and cobble him back together again. It gave him new empathy for Humpty Dumpty.

"Oh God Tony, Sona gushed. "You are such a wonderful, caring lover and you are going to be such a wonderful father. I was waiting for the right time to share my good news with you. I'm having your baby and we are going to be so happy together."

Shattered as he was, Tony forced himself to look at the crazy woman next to him to try to see if she was telling the truth. At the thought of her being pregnant with his child, he felt as if he she had ripped his heart out. The pain was intense and he found he had trouble getting his breath.

_Oh God forgive me_, he cried silently. _What the hell have I done? Hang on though; maybe it is just a part of her delusion. She is clearly not rational right now; _he tried to reason, even as he began to feel the panic attack escalate. _Breathe Anthony, deep breaths in, hold it, out and relax, you know the routine._

He managed to barely control his panic as he half convinced himself that Sona was delusional about a baby. It wasn't as if in his weakened physical state his tiny Tony's were likely to be particularly fertile, he told himself sternly. Frankly, even considering the alternative was unthinkable.

As much as Tony had always been adamant that he didn't want to have a child when he was younger, in the last few years he had begun to consider the possibility. He knew his aversion to fatherhood was because he didn't want to screw up a child like his parents had done with him. Some people should never have children. He knew he was screwed up by his childhood and probably would always carry those scars, and he didn't want to perpetuate the cycle.

With Jeanne, who was his first serious relationship in a very long time, he began to dream that he just might not be such a bad father. The relationship he experienced was in some ways even more important than the one with his parents. She gave him the unconditional love and acceptance that made him think he could be so much more than the sum of his parents. Even allowing for the absolute mess he had made with Jeanne, he found himself yearning for a life partner and a family like other people. At least he knew what _not_ to do, even if he didn't have a positive role model. Well, unless you discounted all the television families he'd watched over the years.

But deciding to have a kid was not something he was likely to enter into lightly, nor did he want a child because of a casual fling. It was obvious that Sona was ill and he would never agree to bring a baby into the world under those circumstances. His own mother had had mental health issues and he had suffered mightily because of that. It was something he wouldn't wish upon anyone, let alone a child of his.

As a cop, he had seen too many children that were victims of being without a father figure. He knew that he and Sona had no future together, at least not after all this. And he wanted to see his child every day, not be a weekend father. He never wanted a child of his to feel unwanted like he had felt, growing up as a DiNozzo. So, for a lot of reasons Sona just couldn't be pregnant.

As he lay awake long after Sona was asleep, he felt his resolve slipping and he felt the seductive pull of simply sinking into a void that he gone to, once or twice in his life, when he couldn't deal with the crap any longer. He had to remind himself firmly that nothing had changed. He had to get help for Sona, who seemed to be losing touch with reality more and more with each day that passed.

He needed to gain her trust but he couldn't sit around waiting for help to arrive. He needed to become more mobile and get out of the damned cuffs, so that he could escape. He had to get her the help she desperately needed, and also make sure that Abby was safe. Tony wasn't big on praying but he began to pray in earnest that Sona wasn't carrying his child.

RFTDRFTD

Tony focused on once again forcing down soup and a few sips of protein drink without losing his lunch. He also managed some steamed vegetables and fish for dinner, his first real meal since he didn't know how long, and while it sat like a lead ball in his stomach, he willed it to stay down because he needed to get his strength back. He needed to convince Sona to release him from the damned handcuffs so he could save his best friend and the woman that he thought he had wronged.

If there was anything that epitomised Anthony DiNozzo, it was that he was a born protector. As a cop he had protected the innocent while guarding his partners' backs. As a Federal Agent he protected Navy and Marine personnel and their families, protected the public against terrorist threats and guarded his teammates and friends against dirt bags and the deranged. It gave him a much needed purpose in life and his creed was "_I've got your six._"

He would gladly die to protect any of his teammates or friends whether that meant taking a bullet for one of them or taking their place with a car bomb. Now a traitorously unwelcome voice inside his head kept whispering _if you're going to be a father you might have to start watching out for your own six too. No kid wants to grow up without a Dad._ He firmly banished that unsolicited and distasteful notion because it was simply too awful to contemplate. He needed to stay focused, and even the _thought_ of a baby with Sona would rip apart any sense of control he had created, however ephemeral. He needed to believe that her pregnancy was a delusion – at least for now, otherwise he would simple cease to function.

RFTDRFTD

Meanwhile at NCIS

"Stop glaring at me Abby, just because Vance has ordered us back on rotation, doesn't mean that we'll stop looking for DiNozzo," Gibbs promised grimly. "We'll work it every chance we get, even if it means working night and weekends too."

"But why did he do it Gibbs? I know that The Toothpick hates Tony but he's still one of the best agents NCIS has!" Abby cried out, frustrated beyond measure.

Jethro reached out and enveloped her in a hug. "I know Abbs, but it's been almost seven weeks and we have no leads or sightings of him. Vance thinks he might be dead already."

"Ouch" he grimaced rubbing his chest where Abby had punched him hard.

"He's alive, Gibbs. I know it but he needs our help. My hinky detector is telling me he needs us really bad but I would know if he were dead, so don't you dare say that again!"

She glared at him in a way that made Jethro think that he wouldn't want Abby for an enemy. For all her sweetness and light, there was a dark depth that he had no wish to explore, he concluded. She could probably make the Hell that his three ex-wives inflicted on him seem like a trip to the zoo.

"I only said Vance believed it Abbs, I didn't say that I did. My gut is telling me he's still alive too, and it's telling me that we missed something. So we are going to go over everything again. We will find him Abby," he promised.

Abby frowned. "I really wish I'd listened to my Hinky Detector that night in the hospital. I knew something bad would happen if I left him alone but I was called in to process evidence on the speed ring, and then it did. Well it didn't happen that night...or maybe it did and that's why Tony was acting so hinky...and now he's gone," she finished breathlessly.

"Okay, slow down Abbs, and tell me what you mean. I need to know everything," Gibbs coached her patiently.

Abby told him about arriving at the hospital and listening to the nurses all gossiping about Tony's weird behaviour following the injury to his hand. He smiled slightly, remembering the kerfuffle Tony had caused by behaving like someone normally did with an injury although he had a feeling he knew what had prompted it. It was Tony's gun firing hand after all.

He listened carefully as she told him about arriving in Tony's room to find him back from surgery and still unconscious. She proceeded to give a detailed description of his nurse, who seemed to be a little too familiar for a professional, according to Abby. Gibbs smiled, knowing the effect Tony had on women even when flat out unconscious. Abby seemed unamused. She never thought any of the women Tony dated were good enough for him, Gibbs mused tolerantly.

"She was just behaving like she knew him or something, Gibbs," she stated. "It just didn't seem right."

She told him about Tony waking up and how she joked with him about his nurse and what his reaction had been.

"Tony hates being fussed over by anyone, you know that, Bossman, especially, when he's injured or sick."

He nodded in agreement with that, although he added a caveat. Tony was even more uncomfortable when it was a female. He always tried to divert them with flirting but he really hated to be fussed over or mothered by any female. Apart, that was, from the matriarch of their local Italian restaurant, where they often went to eat after a case. Marianna would pinch his cheek gently and talk to him in her native tongue and insist on making him special meals. She scolded him when he was looking tired or too thin, Gibbs snorted.

But she always melted when he kissed her cheek tolerantly and called her Nonna. Tony also let Abby mother him to a degree when he was hurt or sick, but for anyone else, he brusquely rejected such ministration. For someone desperate for constant attention, even negative attention like a head slap, Gibbs mused, DiNozzo was a paradox that defied casual contemplation.

Tony was also highly uncomfortable with not being in control. It was one reason why he hated mind altering drugs like pain killers, which he was highly sensitive to. He also despised general anaesthesia for that reason, and Gibbs could see how the fact that a nurse had been around, whilst he was waking up and not being able to censor his thoughts, would make his SFA very uncomfortable. Yet there didn't sound like anything that was cause for concern in what Abby had told him.

Abby continued telling him about Dr Kristina Stuart's visit and he decided to check to see if anyone had spoken to the doctor or not, after Tony went missing. The forensic scientist was telling him how she was getting her hinky feeling when she was called back into the lab. He noticed that Abby directed a glare in his direction. He shuffled uncomfortably, remembering he was responsible for calling her back, after she had left the lab on the back of pulling a marathon forty-eight hour shift. When she saw him again the next morning, Brad Pitt was in the room and Tony looked terrible.

"Much worse than he did the night before Gibbs, but when I asked him what was wrong he said he didn't sleep much. He just gave me a look that made me think he had had one of his nightmares," she finished worriedly.

"Okay, Abbs, every little bit helps, thanks!"

He strode out of the lab, thinking that maybe he should go over to Bethesda when he had a chance and talk to that Nurse Gordon, size her up for himself. See if either Doctor Stuart or Brad had any insight into what might have distressed him, especially about what had upset Tony after Abby had left him alone. It might not have any bearing on his disappearance but they had nothing else to go on. Maybe something had happened after Abby left that was connected to his disappearance, or maybe he had just had a bad night.

Unfortunately, the team picked up a new case later that day and it wouldn't be until late the next day at the earliest that he would have the chance to head off to Bethesda. As he returned to the bull pen, his mind wandered back to Nurse Gordon as he was heading back to his desk. He remembered how Abby had said that Tony had been grateful to her for her help, so perhaps he had shared something with her even if she hadn't realised it. He thought about Abby and her hinky feeling and wondered if there was something wrong or Abby was just being over-protective.

Then another thought occurred to him. No, Abbs couldn't be jealous, could she? He knew that Abby and Tony were very close, but Tony always called her his sister. There was no way that they had broken Rule 12, he would know. _That doesn't mean they aren't attracted to each other and don't realise it, _Gibbs's devil's advocate argued, somewhat archly.

He grunted, thinking of the water fountain gossip that had McGee paired off with Abby. He knew they had had fling years ago and that Abby loved him even if she wasn't in love with him. But he was almost certain that she would never enter into a serious long-term relationship with Tim. For a start, they were too much alike in some ways - McGeeky ways - but McGee lacked the confidence to be able to stand up to the sometimes fiery scientist. She craved an alpha- type personality to compliment her, not an introverted, somewhat passive-aggressive type like McGee.

She could wrap him round her little finger, which was fine for a while but not for a happily ever after. He remembered with amusement how Abby had been threatened by a crazed fan of McGee's books and how he had had to save her by telling the stalker that he loved her alter ego and wanted to be with her forever. It had worked and he had talked him down. When McGee had gone to her, to comfort her after they apprehended the whack job, Abby hadn't wanted to be consoled by him, though.

She was too intent on telling him that their characters weren't right for each other and could never be together. Tim had looked crushed but it was obvious he still harboured hopes that they would get back together. Along with more than half the staff, if gossip was anything to go by. Gibbs snorted as he sat down at his desk, wondering if Tony did have hidden feelings for Abby, who was like a daughter to Jethro. Probably more pertinent, did Abby have less than sisterly feelings for his missing senior field agent?

RFTDRFTD

Another day passed with his Anthony DiNardo persona precariously in situ. He had again managed to keep down a little toast and tea for breakfast and soup and stewed fruit for lunch. Sona had suggested that he take metaclopromide before he ate and it seemed to be working for his nausea as he managed to hold onto his food so far. Apparently it helped to speed emptying of the stomach apart from its antiemetic action, which was useful as any food he ate tended to sit awkwardly in his gut.

Tony forced himself to summon up a modicum of his legendary charm and finally coaxed Sona into letting him take a shower. He heaved a sigh to be able to indulge in a favourite method of relaxation. He wanted to stay under the hot water indefinitely as he tried to scrub away his guilt and self loathing. He was relieved that he wouldn't need to endure a sponge bath from Sona and was congratulating himself, when she joined him in the shower, and not because she was concerned with matters of personal hygiene.

He tried to recall one of those times when he and Jeanne had taken a shower together and go to his other place, as he prayed for the hot water to run out. Sona still insisted on helping him get dried and dressed, even though his collar bone had healed and his ankle was fine. For some reason, it seemed to trigger strong feelings of anxiety that reminded him of something to do with his childhood.

He was frighteningly weak and lacked condition, and fighting against his natural inclination to resisting the assault in the shower and her assistance afterwards, left him emotionally spent and trembling. He had finally ceased denying the notion that Sona was drugging him with more than metaclopramide. He had found a number of what looked like injection sites today, covering his butt and it might explain why he was feeling so weak.

Later on, after managing to eat a small portion of steamed chicken and vegetables and some more protein drink for dinner, Sona started gushing about the baby, asking him about his parents' and grandparents' names, and she talked about her family. She was alone, she revealed, having lost her parents and younger brother in a vehicle collision when she was a teenager. It didn't sound as if she made friends easily and her fiancé had been her most significant support.

Tony felt bad for all she had been through and he cursed himself once more for calling her when he had gotten into trouble. He couldn't understand what had possessed him to call her when he signed out of the hospital either. He wished he could remember, but Sona was right, if he hadn't regained his memory by now he probably never would.

He glanced at Sona and found her beaming at him with a lovesick expression on herbeautiful face. It made him so sad and he despised himself for ruining her life, even as he recoiled when he thought of her. He really was a bad luck magnet for women, he reflected. His mother; Kate his feisty partner; Paula his sometimes lover and buddy, not to mention his former Director, Jen Sheppard were all dead because he failed to protect them, and Jeanne was badly hurt and hated him, quite rightly too. Now he could add Sona to the list of women that he had failed to protect.

Later in bed, during the nightly ordeal, Sona moaned "Tony I want to feel you on top of me tonight."

It was the opportunity he had been both waiting for and dreading; to gain her trust and his freedom, although he wasn't looking forward to paying the price for earning his freedom. He steeled himself, trying not to throw up his dinner and acquiesced. "I can't do that with the cuffs on Sona, you'll have to unlock them," giving her his puppy dog eyes.

She got up and retrieved his key and released him as he stretched his arms and gave his wrists a massage, groaning in relief to be free. Tempting as it was to try and flee right then, he knew that he needed to get hold of some clothes and even more importantly, he needed shoes if he was going to be able to hike through the forest and find help.

He had to bide his time and hope for an opportunity. He couldn't begin to entertain the thought of hurting her to escape, even supposing he had the strength at the moment. He had hurt her too much already; he wouldn't hurt her physically, too. Which was one reason, he supposed, why he hadn't made a break when she'd first released him earlier that day.

Afterwards, as he tried to refrain from puking his guts up, he held her even though it made his skin crawl, hoping that it would encourage her to would leave the cuffs off. He concluded he wasn't such a hotshot undercover operative after all, because he couldn't take much more of this; he was failing miserably to maintain his persona. The flashbacks were also a constant threat, always waiting for him to let down his guard, for even a minute.

He needed to get away, now. She snuggled up beside him and he settled down to wait, hoping that she would fall asleep soon. He needed to check out the cabin, try to find his clothes and the keys to Sona's car. If he was successful, he could drive them both down to the hospital. Otherwise he would have to go on foot and that was going to be a problem, given his weakened condition.

Finally, he heard her regular breathing indicating she was asleep, so he carefully crawled out from her grasp. First he checked to see if he could find the car. It would be the easiest solution to this whole mess but although he checked everywhere around the cabin, he found no trace of Sona's car or even any recent tyre tracks. He also was hoping to see some lights that might indicate there were people close by who might help him, but all around him was a black, velvety darkness that dashed his hopes that there might be neighbours or a town nearby. It seemed that Sona hadn't lied; they were alone and far from any assistance.

He returned inside and began to search for his clothes. If he needed to walk out of here, his clothes and shoes were essential, because the night temperatures were cold and he was already shivering from being outside in only a pair of scrubs. The fact he had lost so much muscle mass made him much more vulnerable to exposure and feeling the cold. He would need to travel at night while Sona was asleep. He was afraid that when she found him gone, her first thought would be to head straight for Abby, which necessitated a nocturnal journey.

Tony was pretty sure that once he disappeared, Sona was going to go ballistic and see him as betraying her. He was afraid she would do something drastic because she wrongly viewed Abby as competing for his affection. So he was going to have to time things carefully. Finally, he found his clothes inside a trunk that was padlocked. As an ex cop and someone who also spent far too much time around Gibbs and Ziva, the lock proved to be no challenge to pick, so that was one hurdle overcome. At least he wouldn't freeze.

Tony checked the wall clock in the kitchen and realised that there were only a few hours before morning. It wasn't enough time for him to go for help before she woke and that realisation made him panic. Failing to find her car was a big blow to his plan. Tony appreciated that he was shaking with fatigue. He knew that he needed to put off an escape until tomorrow night and set off fresh so he had a long as possible to raise the alarm. Tomorrow he would eat as much as he could and make sure he was well hydrated before he set off on foot.

He quickly washed and dried his dirty feet, then took off his scrubs, hoping to conceal the evidence of his nocturnal exploration. Then after taking a deep breath, he climbed back into the bed beside Sona trying not to touch her or to wake her with his shivering.

A/N Big thank-you to my Beta Ibinkybella for her work on this chapter :)


	11. Chapter 11

Rating: M

Disclosure: I acknowledge that the NCIS characters within do not belong to me.

Warning: Once again, be aware that the subject matter within is of a dark nature that may cause distress to some readers, in which case I would advise against reading further.

A/N Thank you to everyone for your reviews and the support that you offered. If you reviewed as a guest, my apologies for not being able to thank you individually but know that I really appreciated all the support. In particilar to my Guest reviewer with personal life experience who gave valuable insight and encouragement. I really appreciate your review and your honesty. After this chapter, there will be two further chapters and an eight hundred word epilogue which will conclude this part of the saga. Just wanted to warn you all that while will there will be some resolution, it was never the intention for everything to be resolved at the end of this story. The intention was always to resolve many of the deliberately unresovled questions in what I affectionately call the healing story or Dancing With The Demons.

To the guest reviewer who observed that Gibbs in RFTD was uncharacteristically clueless, I will say that I do not claim to be infallible when it comes to immersing myself in the gunny's psyche or in writing his POV but I can think of many instances when his famous gut or if you like, his intuition has let him down. For example in South by Southwest, when he granted access to a trained assassin who murdered an NCIS agent before then impersonating a Homeland Security agent to gain access to highly sensitive case related information that included the location of the witness, who had given evidence to the slain NCIS agent. The result was that Gibbs, Tony, the Leo and the artist Dana Ricci were all in danger of being killed during an assassination attempt by the hired killer in a helo. There are many other examples too but the point is that they are all plot devices utilised by the writers to tell a story because otherwise, if Gibbs gut was as infallible as people, including himself seem to believe, there would be no need to investigate at all or to have a MCRT. All I can suggest is that FF is supposed to be for entertainment purposes and if you aren't enjoying a story, then don't read it. I can guarantee that you won't enjoy the next chapter and there are plenty of writers that focus on Gibbs-centric stories where he is everything that you stated. At best in the first of the trilogy, his involvement was always periphery to Tony's experience. That will change somewhat as the situation evolves.

To Ibinkybella who beta'ed my punctuation into submission in this chapter as in the past, I owe you my eternal gratitude. All remaining mistakes are my bad.

Running From The Demons

Chapter Nine Contingencies

He was physically and emotionally spent and although Tony was planning on resting, not sleeping, he couldn't stay awake and retreated albeit unwillingly to where the demons lay waiting patiently to ambush him. Darkness suffocated him, pressing on his chest and making it impossible to breathe. His heart was pounding and there was a painful roaring in his ears. The steady breathing kept on coming closer and closer towards him until he could feel the breath against his cheek. A hand began to ruffle his hair tenderly, yet Tony felt the suppressed menace within the monster. The hand was covering his mouth.

Just when he thought he was going to pass out from sheer, unadulterated terror he saw a flash of blue. The next he knew, he was jerked awake in panic to find Sona spooned up behind him, one hand on his butt and her other hand had reached around and was fondling him intimately.

Tony cried out in fear as he drew his long legs up and tried to curl into a ball.

Sona let go of him and reached out to rub him on his back to soothe him. "Your fine Tony, I won't let anyone hurt you, it's just a dream" she crooned to him.

"Look at me, Tony." she coached him as he looked fearfully into her sapphire eyes, and she gently began to stroke his hair, trying to calm him.

The effect of which was that Tony acted as if he was electrified as he bound away from her and began screaming wordlessly. Sona was shocked. Tony's nightmares were getting worse, not better. She needed to get him to start opening up about what was so frightening. He began hyperventilating as the sweat poured off him and she could literally smell his fear.

Finally she managed to calm him with her voice, coaching him to take deep regular breaths but he wouldn't let her touch him. After fifteen minutes of soothing him softly she eventually persuaded him to get into the shower and he let the hot water wash over him, slowly relaxing his corded muscles. When he emerged at last from the bathroom, Tony avoided making eye contact with Sona, discomforted by his meltdown and confused as to what sparked it. He flashed back to the intense blue flare he had seen just before waking up. This was something that was new and he wondered what it meant. Maybe it had been a spark of lightning, perhaps?

He knew that he wasn't getting better and that despite his abhorrence of shrinks, it was probably time to admit that he needed help. Just as soon as he got himself out of here, got Sona the help she needed and made sure that she couldn't hurt Abby, he reminded himself. First things first!

Sona tried to get him to eat breakfast, but his face was still slightly green in hue and he managed only a bite or two of dry toast and a few sips of protein drink before he pushed them away. She handed him a bottle of water and encouraged him to drink because Sona heard him throwing up while he was in the bathroom. Although he probably didn't have any food left in his gut to lose, he had vomited for over five minutes before getting it under control and she knew that he could easily become dehydrated. Tony knew it was important to stay hydrated too because of his plans for tonight, so he slowly sipped the water and flashed a weak smile of thanks.

She responded by coming up behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck. At her touch, Tony almost fell off the chair before taking a deep breath and trying to leaning back into her embrace. His jaw muscles clenched tightly trying to maintain control as he tried not to shrink from her touch. Somehow today after his nightmare it was almost impossible for him to tolerate being touched by her. Afraid that she might feel rejected and direct her jealousy onto Abby again, he was forcing himself not to show his revulsion. Tony knew that come what may, he had to get out of here tonight, but instead of conserving his energy for the mission, he was expending what little ground he had gained over the last couple of days as he fought to maintain his mask.

RFTDRFTD

Tony sat on the sofa in the living area of the cabin while Sona curled up against him, her head in his lap, while Tony remembered the times he had been in this position with Abby. They sometimes watched movie marathons together as a way to decompress after particularly stressful cases. He wondered what was going on with the team right now.

Were they searching for him? Why the hell had he run away from them when he crashed his car and seriously, what possessed him to get in touch with Sona? He must have been thinking with his dick, not his brain, he decided disgustedly.

Meanwhile, Sona began telling him about growing up with her brother, and Tony found himself listening intently. He had always envied his friends who had grown up with siblings and he tried to imagine what it would have been like to have not been an only child. He drifted off, wondering again, if his mother had had a daughter, might she have found motherhood more fulfilling and resisted the temptation to take her own life.

Sona nudged him gently in his ribs, cognisant that he had very little padding at the moment and asked him about his childhood. He spoke haltingly about his mother, telling her how she was a pianist and how she used to sometimes teach him to play pieces or play for him. He confessed shyly to sneaking into her music room when she was alone and listening to her play (and cry), although he kept that detail to himself. He told her how beautiful she was and that when they sat together at the piano and she hugged him, he felt safe and loved.

When Sona wanted to know about his father, Tony pursed his lips slightly and spoke about the superficial aspects of his father. His obsession with making money and his determination that Anthony Junior should follow in his father's footsteps. He also told her some of his painful memories (the Hawaiian Hotel fiasco and the Halloween dress up debacle) disguised as glib dinner party anecdotes that had always kept his work mates from prying too much into what were his open wounds. Instead of being amused though, like his teammates, she sent him a pitying look.

Crap he thought, he was able to fool trained investigators like Ziva, Kate and McGee but Sona seemed to have a BS meter that saw straight past his subterfuge to the anguish that others didn't. Tony figured that while Sona might be damaged and delusional about them being in a relationship, her own grief and sorrow meant she was able to recognise pain in others too. It probably was what also made her an excellent nurse, he concluded. He felt as if Sona had stripped away his entire amour and left him absolutely exposed, and it added to his feelings of violation. Sona noticed that he had become morose and withdrawn so she changed the subject and began speaking about their baby, unknowingly adding to Tony's anxiety as she prattled on about their rose-coloured future together.

Tony was wretched because as much as he hoped that Sona was indeed delusional and was not carrying his child, he couldn't help but be concerned about how she would deal with the loss of 'their imaginary baby' and how she would cope with him leaving their so-called relationship. She was going to be completely devastated and it was his fault. He couldn't even bear to contemplate what it would mean if she was really pregnant though, so he distracted them both by changing the topic.

"Tell me about your mother and her music, Sona. Was she a musician too?"

"Yes she was. She was also a music teacher, Tony. She taught singing, cello and piano," she answered him with a sad smile. "Mom played in the State Symphony and took us to concerts like other kids got to go to the movies. She was kind of obsessed with all things musical which rubbed off on us both. We had a pair of Siamese cats that she named Allegra and Aria," she confessed as he gave a genuine chuckle. "My dad drew the line at letting her call my brother Wolfgang though. He was named for my Grandpa Jacob."

Tony mused on the coincidence of having mothers with a similar passion for music, which they had passed on to their children. He missed being able to sit down at his piano, especially when he was finding it difficult to sleep at night. He always felt more mellowed after playing his beloved jazz songs.

Sona uncurled herself from around him and suggested that they have an omelette for lunch and busied herself in the kitchen. As he watched her he couldn't help but think about his mother. Some of his best memories of her apart from their music, was when she would actually act like a mom, occasionally cooking for him when he was sick, although it hadn't happened a lot.

Sometimes she would also make warm milk for him when he woke up screaming from his nightmares. While his father was scathing in his condemnation of his effeminate son's weakness, she would gently rock him back to sleep. He stared at Sona, realising suddenly that she had the same sapphire-blue coloured eyes as his mom. He wondered why he had never noticed before, but he tried not to think about his childhood that much.

Talking about her with Sona today must have stirred his memory, he guessed. The more he thought about it, their hair was a similar warm shade of mid brown as well, although his mom's hair was long and wavy and she'd worn it like a soft warm cloud around her head and shoulders. Sona wore hers in a cropped and modern do, with some lighter highlights added.

Tony was quiet and melancholy as he sat down and tried to eat as much as he could of the delicately herbed omelette that Sona had made for them. Although he had no appetite, he knew he needed the protein for his hike tonight. He wished he was in shape to be able to run but he acknowledged that he couldn't even manage a fifty yard dash before collapsing in a heap. So he forced the eggs into his mouth and concentrated on keeping them down.

He lay down on the sofa after they ate and power napped. Whenever he was in dangerous undercover situations where it wasn't safe to sleep and there was no one to watch his six, he had developed a habit of dozing lightly for five minutes at a stretch so that he never entered the deepest stages of sleep. It meant that he could wake instantly and be ready to respond to any threat to himself. It was also handy when he worked with Gibbs and he made them work for days on end with little sleep. The point of the naps here being that he was never asleep deeply enough for the dream to hijack him. He needed as much rest as he could get, to find help tonight.

When Sona cleaned up after lunch, she joined him to lay half on top of him on the sofa as she snuggled with him. Although he found her closeness even more difficult to tolerate than before, Tony was grateful that she was content to nap alongside him rather than wanting to do anything more intimate. He mentally considered what he needed to do tonight and sighed silently as he contemplated the likelihood of having to couple with Sona again tonight. He hated what he was doing to her but he also hated what it was doing to him. He was feeling violated and yet also like a violator.

He did need to stay focused because by this time tomorrow if he was successful, Sona would have the help that she needed to overcome her delusions. Hopefully she would be given assistance to deal with her unresolved grief over the death of her fiancé Matt and their unborn baby, and to face her delusions and heal. He could also ensure that Abby was safe because at the moment she had no idea that Sona had developed a pathological jealousy that may place her in danger. And Tony could try and repair the damage that he had done by rejecting his teammates and running away from them when he was in trouble. Could any of them forgive him for the mess he'd made since he crashed his car?

Sona had prepared a simple pasta dish with some poached chicken and mushrooms and Tony blessed anti-nausea meds as he tried carbo loading in preparation for his escape attempt later on. Although he only managed to eat about half of his portion, he was still pleased with his efforts. Now, all he had to do was manage to keep it down. Sona poured them both a glass of red wine, but Tony knew that he wasn't in any shape to drink alcohol so he made a show of sipping it slowly, letting it moisten his lips but it didn't make it past them. When he got the chance, he deliberately knocked over the glass, spilling the contents. If he was right and she giving him drugs other than the metaclopramide for nausea, he really didn't want to risk drinking, too.

RFTDRFTD

Meanwhile back at NCIS headquarters

The rest of Team Gibbs was busy wrapping up the paperwork on the successful completion of their latest case when Jethro remembered his intention of personally interrogating the three medical personnel at Bethesda about Tony's behaviour during his hand surgery. Telling his team he would be back later and expected their reports to be completed on his return, he headed out, hoping to find some clue that might point him in the right direction. His gut was doing that peculiar stirring thingy that he had learnt to ignore at his peril.

He found Dr. Stuart finishing up her evening rounds before heading home. She graciously allowed herself to be subject to the dubious charms of a Gibbs interview, aware that he was treating her as a suspect. Of what, she wasn't sure, and the tall, fifty-something surgeon regarded him somewhat amusedly but was also a little annoyed before interrupting his questions.

"Am I to infer that I am now a suspect, Agent Gibbs? What does Agent DiNozzo's surgery have to do with his disappearance more than seven weeks later?" she demanded imperiously.

Gibbs was reminded that as a top notch surgeon, she was not likely to be easily intimidated. She probably was as skilled in playing mind games with her people as Gibbs was.

He smiled slightly before offering, "he was acting odd ever since his injury and we are wondering if something happened while he was here that is connected to his kidnapping. None of the other leads have panned out. I know it seems like a long shot but my gut tells me we're missing something here."

She stared at his icy blue eyes and felt their magnetic pull, but also his desperate need to find his agent. She recalled the very unconventional forensic scientist that was with Anthony that night so many weeks ago now and wondered what it was about him that engendered such loyalty in his workmates. Both colleagues seemed to be more than friends that worked together. Kristina Stuart nodded, acknowledging the concept of Gibbs gut. She also relied on her intuition as a doctor, although she felt that gut instincts could in part be explained by skill and experience. The doctor sighed and answered his questions as fully as she could, hoping that they found her patient but fearing after almost two months missing, it was unlikely.

Gibbs' gut told him that Kristina was not the cause of Abby's hinky feelings. He tried to speak to the nurse Sonata Gordon but she wasn't on duty. He arranged to meet with her supervisor in thirty minutes so he set off in search of DiNozzo's respiratory specialist and friend. Dr Pitt was eager to know if there was anything new regarding Tony's disappearance. He agreed that Tony had been behaving strangely at the hospital and that he looked terrible in the morning after the surgery. Something definitely had disturbed his friend, although he gave no clue as to what it was.

Gibbs tactfully tried to grill him about Kristina Stuart and Sonata Gordon. At least it was his intention to be tactful but Gibbs was, in reality, as tactful as a cold sore. Brad gazed at him quizzically then asked carefully.

"Do you really think they might be responsible?" Gibbs shrugged and Brad pursed his lips. "I don't know much about Nurse Gordon apart from the fact she is rather pretty and she lost her fiancé in a hit and run accident. Kristina is a respected colleague and I've know her for years."

"Okay, thanks Brad. You didn't see DiNozzo after he went home did you?"

"We were planning on getting together to watch some games but my schedule, and then his, got in the way. Sorry Gibbs" he finished regretfully. He was worried about his friend too.

Gibbs headed back up to the nurses' station to speak with Sonata Gordon's nursing supervisor Martha Williams to find out when Nurse Gordon would be back on duty again. Gibbs also wanted to find out more about Gordon as he tended to trust Abby's hinky detector. Williams was a statuesque five foot ten African American, her hair in elaborate cornrow braids, with dark expressive eyes. Those same eyes were currently employed in checking him out, with an almost predatory air before handing him an extremely strong cup of black coffee. He sniffed it appreciatively and she smirked at him. No doubt his reputation had preceded him, he thought, amused.

"Thanks for your time Ms. Williams. Is Nurse Gordon going to be on duty tonight?"

Martha looked momentarily surprised but quickly schooled her expression into one of impassiveness. "I'm afraid not, Agent Gibbs. Sonata is presently on a leave of absence and I'm not sure exactly when she'll be back at this stage. She had some personal issues to attend to."

Gibbs gut began to stir even harder. "Is that so? When did she go on leave Ms Williams?" he asked.

"Please, call me Martha," she smiled coquettishly at him. _Is she flirting with me,_ Gibbs wondered? She consulted her computer and gave him the date of Gordon's leave, which was a several days after Tony went missing. "She also came in to work for one shift after she began her leave. It was a swapped shift with one of the other nurses."

Gibbs gut was so active it was already half way back to the office._ Yes! This was the break they were looking for, he was certain._ Nevertheless, he wanted to gather information about the suspect.

"What can you tell me about Sonata Gordon?" Gibbs let her have it with his baby blues. She wasn't the only one who could flirt.

"Umm, she lost her fiancé in a tragic accident last year and has had a hard time getting over it. She has no family that I am aware of and she's fairly quiet. Sonata is a very capable nurse and her patients love her. Actually most of the males that work here are all in love with her but she doesn't date. I guess that might partly explain her attractiveness to the opposite sex – the whole unobtainable thing. That and she's a very attractive woman."

By now warning bells were going off loud and clear in Gibbs head.

Martha cocked her head. "Can I ask what this is all about?"

"One of my Agents has gone missing and I'm trying to work out what happened to him. He was admitted to this floor following emergency hand surgery and Sonata Gordon was his nurse. Something happened while he was here and I believe it might have something to do with why he is missing. I was hoping to speak to Gordon." It was a wordy explanation for the functional mute but he was going with his ... ahem ... gut _and perhaps another part of his anatomy._

Martha had been listening carefully and recognition had begun to dawn on her face. "What is your agent's name, Special Agent Gibbs?"

"My name's Jethro, Martha and my agent's name is Anthony DiNozzo," slowly spelling it out for her.

She typed away at her keyboard again and pulled up his patient record. "Oh my," she exclaimed. "It's rather thick, isn't it? Hang on, I think I recall something."

Gibbs waited, resisting the urge to throw her out of the chair so he could read the damn file himself. "Yes, here it is. I remember now. Sonata came to me concerned about Anthony. It seems that he became extremely distressed, following a recurrent nightmare. It says here in her notes that it occurred on at least three occasions that she witnessed. He seemed to be having severe panic attacks and she was very concerned about him."

Gibbs nodded; Abby's deduction about nightmares was confirmed but panic attacks sounded pretty heavy. He wondered what could be so bad that it would cause DiNozzo to have panic attacks. Knowing how much he liked to be in control, he could see why Tony wouldn't want anyone to know about it. It explained why he had felt beholding to the nurse but also why he didn't want to get too close her. He was probably pretty embarrassed.

Yet Gordon's absence, almost mirroring Tony's own, was way too much of a coincidence for the team leader, who didn't believe in co-incidences to begin with. She was connected somehow. He'd stake his gut on it. He decided he had to get back to the Navy Yard to update the team. They had a lead, now they needed to work it for all it was worth!

Gibbs stood up, smiling at Martha Williams appreciatively. "Thanks for your time," he told the nursing supervisor.

"Anytime Jethro, I hope it helps some. Give me a call and I'll buy you a coffee," she grinned slyly. _Oh yeah, she is so flirting with me,_ he smirked as he left.

"I'll take you up on that offer," he promised over his shoulder, because he couldn't say no to a beautiful woman who knew how to make a real cup of coffee, even if she wasn't a red-head. As he made his way back to his car he wondered idly what she would look like if she dyed her locks auburn.


	12. Chapter 12

Rating: M

Disclaimer: The characters within do not belong to me, nor am I making ant money from them.

Warning: This story contains content that may cause individuals distress including grief issues, mental illness and ongoing sexual assault. Reader discretion is advised.

A/N Thanks to everyone who reviewed and alerted for the last chapter. As usual kudos and thanks go to Ibinkybella for beta reading this chapter. This is the penultimate chapter although there is also a short epilogue too.

**Running From The Demons**

**Chapter Ten Flight**

As the night wore on, Tony felt himself becoming more and more jumpy. He would normally pace or exercise, or if he was home, play piano to distract himself, but he had to try and stay calm and not give away his plans. He couldn't afford to blow this.

Sona came up behind Tony and wrapped her arms around his waist, molding herself against his buttocks and back. He sighed inwardly and thought, _let the games begin_. She entwined her hand in Tony's slim sensitive fingers and slowly started to undress them both...

Tony found himself lying in the darkness of Sona's bed as she slept soundly beside him. He was disorientated and wondered if he'd been asleep, but seeing that whenever he slept these days he woke up screaming from the nightmare that tortured him, he doubted it. He couldn't remember anything that had happened after Sona had begun to take off his clothes... well, his scrubs.

He felt that something really bad had happened and he kept wringing and then wiping his hand for some reason because it was wasn't right but he didn't know why. All he knew was that he felt as if the world was about to end.

RFTDRFTD

**Meanwhile back at NCIS**

Gibbs strode out of the elevator and barked at his agents, "Sit rep!"

Ziva and Tim fell over themselves to deliver the data that they had gathered since Gibbs had called on his way back from the hospital, telling them to find out everything that they could on Nurse Sona Gordon.

"She lives alone in an apartment twenty minutes drive from Bethesda, is thirty-three years of age, and she hasn't been seen by neighbors for almost two months. Her car has also been missing and she has no living relatives." reported Ziva eagerly.

Tim McGee took over. "She has used her credit cards several times in that period to buy groceries at markets close to Bethesda. There are no unusual transactions on any of her bank accounts. Her cell phone is switched off and she hasn't made any calls for over a month."

"McGee I want to you to dig up everything that you can on Gordon. If she sneezed I want to know. Clear?"

"Umm yes Boss. On it!"

"Ziva, you're with me. We need to check out her apartment. We need to find her now. "

Ziva grabbed her back pack and followed Gibbs into the elevator. "Why would Sonata Gordon have kidnapped Tony?"

"I'm not sure what her motive is Ziva, but she has him," he said forcefully.

"Gibbs' gut?" she asked him knowingly.

"Oh yeah." he grinned furiously, his blues eyes completely feral.

After checking out Sonata Gordon's modest one bedroom apartment, it was clear that she hadn't been there any time recently. Nor was there any indication that DiNozzo had been there either. Ziva found several photograph albums and decided to take them back to NCIS, along with all her personal papers which they came across while searching. Hopefully they might provide clues as to where she had gone. Disappointed that they hadn't found any solid leads, they were returning to the Navy Yard when McGee rang to say that he might have something

"One of the nurses at Bethesda that I spoke to said Sonata mentioned something about going to a cabin in the hills, one time. I'm checking now, I got hold of her personnel file, don't ask how! There is an unexplained leave of absence approximately eighteen months ago for six weeks."

"That's good work, McGee. We'll be back at the office in ten." Gibbs hung up his cell phone and dialedBethesda and asked to speak to Nurse Gordon's Supervisor, Martha Williams.

"So what can I do for you Jethro," Martha asked him when she picked up the phone."

"It has come to our attention that Ms. Gordon also took a leave of absence for a six week period eighteen months ago. Do you know why, Martha?" Gibbs glared at Ziva's quizzical eyebrow lift at his use of her Christian name.

"It was for personal reasons, Jethro."

"Gordon is now a person of interest in the abduction of Agent DiNozzo, so I need to know, Martha."

"You can't be serious? Sona would never do something like that. But if you must know, she checked into a private clinic to be treated for depression after her fiancé was killed and she miscarried his child just after she buried him."

Gibbs was silent as he empathized with Sonata for the terrible loss that she had suffered. He knew he sounded like a bastard but he had to ask.

"Which clinic?"

She sighed exasperatedly before admitting "I believe it was the Hayes Institute in Baltimore."

"Thanks Martha, I'll call and we'll have that coffee soon."

Ziva smirked and decided to risk death. "So is Martha a redhead, Gibbs?"

He ignored her, sending her the furious death stare as he concentrated on getting back to the office as quickly as possible, while not killing them both in the process.

RFTDRFTD

Knowing that something terrible had occurred but realising that he didn't have time to try to figure out what had been done, he steeled himself and crawled out of the bed. Tony crept soundlessly to the trunk he'd discovered the night before and picked the lock with a small knife from the kitchen. Retrieving his jeans, shirt and a hoodie, he dressed quickly before putting on his socks and running shoes, reflecting that he was glad that on his last day at work he had been dressed for desk duty. He wouldn't have liked to attempt this trip on foot, dressed in a designer suit.

Tony searched in vain, hoping to locate his set of handcuffs. He knew that if Sona woke after he was gone and took it into her head to take after Abby, he probably wouldn't be able to get help quickly enough. If he could restrain her it would give him more time, but apparently she had hidden his cuffs along with his cell phone and gun. Probably in the same place as she had hidden the keys to her car.

He silently exited the cabin and resolved to spend thirty minutes searching for Sonata's car. If he could find her car it would make this rescue attempt so much easier. He believed in following his own dictums, one of his most important being, work smarter not harder, and that definitely applied in this situation

So he did a quick perimeter search with the cabin as the foci, fanning out two hundred yards. Unfortunately he found nothing. He knew that if he kept extending out the perimeter, surely he would eventually find her vehicle. Even if it took the rest of the night he could wait another day, couldn't he?

Tony felt a flash of unadulterated horror as he experienced a mental image of his mother's beautiful face while he was with Sona. The image was appalling, so disgusting, so defiling to the cherished memories he had of his mother that before he knew it, bile was rising up his esophagus and he was down on his knees, heaving up his dinner and the rest of his intestines. At least it felt that way. His mother's face, with her delicately molded features, sapphire blue eyes that spoke of a lifetime of pain and sorrow, had nevertheless been a source of comfort for him usually that he very rarely took out and examined when he was feeling really down. Now it would become a source of defilement and filth.

Without conscious thought he began to run, his quads pounding like pistons. He ran from the cabin, from Sonata, from the image he had conjured up that was beyond perverted for a loving son, but mostly he ran from himself. All his life he had been running from his demons, running away from his many weaknesses and flaws, but tonight he couldn't even bear to reside in the same skin as the one that had done what he just did tonight. Bad enough to violate Sona but to defile his mother by trying to conjure up her image in an attempt to distract himself was beyond forgiveness. It was vile, perverted and it sickened him beyond measure.

If it wasn't for the fact that Sonata desperately needed help and Abby needed to be protected from her, he would gladly find some way to kill himself for being such a disgusting excuse for a human being. Time enough to remedy that afterwards, some part of his brain counseled him. So he ran,

not really knowing where he was going apart from heading downhill, without being consciously aware of the terrain as he ran. While he had been sure that he couldn't manage to run more than a few steps before, now he was fueled by a potent mix of fear, desperation and self-loathing. Three extremely formidable demons, resulting in his body being flooded with adrenaline and a plethora of hormones which temporarily overrode the lethargy and muscle weakness dogging him since his arrival at the cabin.

Dinozzo's elegant running style was absent; he stumbled and fell frequently but got back to his feet and fled as if the hounds of hell had been unleashed. In reality, Tony felt as if they were pursuing him and if he stopped running even for a moment, his soul would be devoured. Even as he tried to outrun the feeling of perversion that he felt for his worthless life, he was laughing bitterly at all of the shrinks, particularly the Freudian analysts that his father forced him to go to during his childhood.

All those truly sick perverts, whom he had been forced to call Doctor and to be polite to. All the while they had explored his so-called oedipal tendencies, which they considered to be at the root of all his 'issues.' DiNozzo had wanted to choke them all or pound them into oblivion. How could anyone ever believe that he, indeed that any child, would want to have sex with their mother and kill their father?

Well, okay, they got the murderous rage that he harboured for his father right enough, but it had nothing to do with being jealous of his father and wanting to sleep with _her_. That was just so sick on so many levels, but Tony had always believed that it had spoken much more about the perverted personalities of his therapists than it did to a grief-stricken and abandoned young boy. He thought that they were two-headed mutants and he always felt contaminated, merely by being in their presence. After a therapy session he would always come home and puke up his guts. Then in a futile attempt to cleanse himself of the filth, Tony would stand under a scalding hot shower scrubbing himself raw, until the water ran cold and he was shaking with cold.

After tonight though, Tony was suddenly very much afraid that he had been wrong all these years. Of course he never wanted to sleep with his mother, he screamed inside his head because he had no breath to scream out loud. The very notion prompted him to vomit even while he was powerless to stop his forward flight. What if he was such a sick fuck that, all these years he _had_ been coveting his mother?

No wonder his mother had taken her own life rather than have to be around him any longer. He felt like his brain and his heart were going to explode, and he once gain experienced a splitting off from his overwhelming emotions. He felt like he was beside his body rather than inside it. He knew he still had to get out of this because there were people that needed him, even if he was the biggest scumbag incarnate.

Although he had long passed beyond his physical endurance, Tony was still on his feet, but he was stumbling and his balance was impaired as if he was intoxicated. Tony was vaguely aware of the lactic acid that was building up in his muscles but he forced himself onwards. Always heading downhill, he was hoping that he would find evidence of habitation. Exhausted, his feet began to drag as he jogged and tripped over a medium sized rock. Tony tumbled over and face planted himself for a minute or two before he stubbornly forced himself to his feet and pushed himself forwards.

RFTDRFTD

**Meanwhile Back at NCIS**

Ziva had searched through the photograph albums that they had found in Gordon's apartment and she found several photographs of Sonata and her fiancé at what was probably the cabin. Abby was now using her unique forensic skills to examine the photos to see if she could get a fix on its location. Gibbs was going through Sonata's personal papers while McGee continued to search for the cabin electronically, investigating any close friends or relatives.

Gibbs shot out of his chair. "I found something. Gordon is executor of her fiancé's estate which has yet to go through probate. He left her a cabin near the Shenandoah National Park. I need an address ASAP!"

Abby had arrived in the bullpen to report her findings and caught Gibbs' information.

She pushed him towards the elevator. "Go Gibbs, I'll find the address but you need to get on the road already and bring him back. Please? I'll send co-ordinates when I find them. Go! Hurry Mister!"

Gibbs nodded to his agents and said, "Let's go bring him home, people."

RFTDRFTDRFTD

DiNozzo was beyond pain, beyond agony, but he was still moving, albeit jogging painfully onward, if you could call stumbling drunkenly, bent over at an almost ninety degree angle, jogging. Many an octogenarian jogging-granny had more energy and control than Tony, at present. His breathing was coming in great heaving gasps as he endeavoured to draw sufficient quantities of oxygen into his plague scarred lungs. On some level the athlete that he was figured that his current significant loss of lean muscle mass had affected his respiratory system but it didn't change what he had to do.

He had lost all sense of time. All he knew was that he had to find help. He pushed himself on, not noticing that he was approaching a ravine until it was much too late and he found his feet walking on air before he landed awkwardly on the rocky covered decline and lost his footing. Then he was rolling and bouncing down the ravine before clunking his head on a boulder which brought him up with a jerk. Just before he passed out he remembered thinking that at least he had gotten to the bottom of the ravine a lot faster than he would have on foot.

When he finally regained consciousness, he had no way to tell how long he had been out. He realised he had injured his ribs, as well as collected yet another concussion. He knew this because he was seeing double. He knew he needed to get up and keep going but every time he tried he was overwhelmed by nausea and pain, not to mention bone weary exhaustion.

He felt someone gently stroking his hair and heard a familiar voice soothing him. The scent of gunpowder hung heavy in the air and he whispered to her.

"I'm sorry Abbs. I let you down. I didn't keep you safe and now you're in danger from Sona. I couldn't even protect my best friend."

"Oh Tony, you can never ever let me down. You're my best friend and I love you forever and ever." She leant over him and sweetly kissed his cheek before getting up and walking away.

"Wait Abby, don't go. I need you!" he called but she didn't turn around. So he tried to stand despite the pain and nausea that was threatening to overwhelm him in a paroxysm of puking, and tried to drag air into his tortured airways. Desperate not to lose Abby now that he had found her again, he summoned reserves of strength from he knew not where, and stumbled forward after his friend.

RFTDRFTD

The car was screeching around the curves at a speed and homicidal rate that was extreme even for anyone used to Gibbs's and Ziva's manic driving techniques. McGee was so glad that he hadn't eaten all day. He was almost peeing his pants as he was flung around the car despite his seatbelt. They all felt that they were close to finally finding DiNozzo after seven interminable weeks of not knowing where he was and if he was alive or dead. The atmosphere was tense within the car and everyone jumped when McGee's phone rang.

"Hey Abbs, whatcha got?" McGee greeted as he put her on speaker phone.

"I found the address guys. I've texted the GPS co-ordinates to your phone, McGee. Also, you'll have to go the last half mile on foot as there's no proper road and you don't have four wheel drive. The cabin is a three room dwelling with front and back access and a trail leading away from the back exit." She had found as much information as she could to help them to safely take control of the dwelling.

" I also can't find any record of Sona having registered firearms but we didn't find Tony's Sig, so please be careful, guys. I want you all back in one piece. And that includes my favourite senior field agent too"

"Great work Abby, talk soon," Gibbs praised his forensic scientist.

"Ziva, call the director and have him organise some support from the local LEOs. They can maybe get there before us. Tell them to observe and confirm Gordon's presence and if possible, DiNozzo's too, but do not engage. And tell them I need her alive so they are not to shoot her."

RFTDRFTDRFTD

After Abby left him at the bottom of the ravine, he had somehow managed to get back on his feet and continued on his heroic quest to find help. Anthony DiNozzzo, despite many people's perception of him, was a complex and enigmatic character who was often a contradiction in terms. He was needy of attention yet despised himself because of it, and usually rejected all but the most superficial or negative attention. As much as he craved attention, he was a master of erecting defences to push people away.

He was brash, smug and way too invested in his appearance and physical attributes, yet capable of breath-takingly empathetic behaviour and insight into anyone that was hurting. He was par excellence when it came to pissing off those he despised and yet capable of generous acts of kindness, like donating his Halloween Crazy Pool winnings that he entered into annually with local LEOs to a worthy children's charity without a second thought. He was perceived by most people as an intellectual lightweight at best, although 'dumb pretty boy' was the usual phrase that was bandied about, but his Oscar quality act disguised a highly intuitive and Edward DeBono-like creative thinker, one who was able to see the same things as his colleagues and find connections that nobody else would ever dream of.

He played the easy-going clown, and few people ever got to witness the hidden depth of anger and intensity that he usually managed to mask. His constant teasing of his co-workers also allowed him to hide his intensely protective nature when it came to those he cared for. That was until they were in peril and his true nature surged to the fore and he would dive in to take a bullet for them without a qualm. That protective nature was one of the defining qualities among many positive attributes, that not only made him the agent that he was, but allowed him to rise above his less than stellar childhood.

And so, summoning up super-human reserves of strength to save people he cared deeply for, he continued to place one flagging foot in front of another. If he had only been concerned with his own survival he would not have found the necessary reserves to keep on going. Right now if it was only his life at stake, he would have willing squelched his normal resilience and survival instinct because he felt so worthless, _just like his father always said_, and gladly brought about his own demise, but that was a self indulgent luxury. Help was needed and he was going to succeed if it killed him.

Despite his exhaustion, his keen hearing picked up the familiar sounds of vehicles somewhere off in the distance. As this was the first indication that he was approaching habitation, he automatically shifted direction, praying that he could find the road, and soon. As he changed direction he twisted his ankle. He went left while his ankle went right, swiftly stopping his forward momentum as he collapsed flat on his face yet again. His ankle screamed in pain as it protested the cavalier treatment it had received.

_I'll just have a rest here for a minute,_ he thought to himself.

RFTDRFTDRFTD

Team Gibbs had arrived at the end of the trail that led to the cabin where they hoped to find their friend and Senior Field Agent, Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo. They piled out of the car and grabbed their gear and flashlights and started up the path on the last click to Sona's cabin. There was no conversation; they were too intent on climbing the steep incline and finding Tony as quickly as they could. Seven plus weeks of not knowing what had happened to Tony was far too long to wait a second longer than necessary. Ziva reflected briefly about their friends Abby, Jimmy and Ducky back at NCIS. At least Team Gibbs was able to actively pursue their goal. The others had the much more difficult task of waiting for news, hoping, yet imagining everything that could go wrong. Ziva was grateful that she was a field agent.

As they finally drew in sight of the timber cabin, they saw that it was ablaze with lights, even though it was 0230 hours and they expected darkness. Although it was good insofar as it indicated that their investigative skills had lead them to Sonata Gordon, it also made McGee's hairs on the back of his neck rise up. Gibbs's gut was fluttering so violently that he wondered if he had inadvertently swallowed an epileptic grasshopper, and meanwhile Ziva had instinctively adopted her secret ninja spy mode. Moving seamlessly as one, they prepared to enter the cabin; Gibbs and McGee from the front and Ziva from the rear.

"Clear," yelled Gibbs, and a split second later Ziva also indicated the rear of the cabin was clear.

They all slumped imperceptibly as it became clear that someone had been there until very recently. The bed was still warm and somewhat rumpled. Washed crockery and cutlery was on the draining board in the kitchen.

"Ziva, get on the phone and call in reinforcements. We need to secure the cabin and process the scene. We also need to be prepared in case she comes back again. Re-issue that BOLO on her car because she might still be somewhere close. We also need extra manpower to search the area around the cabin in case Gordon or Tony are still here somewhere," he commanded before indicating to McGee that they should begin searching the area outside the cabin for clues as to where the occupants had gone.

Meanwhile, Ziva was doing an admirable job of contacting the local PD and NCIS to organise extra support. Knowing that the life of a fellow cop was at stake, the response of many volunteers was immediate and generous. Consequently, a steady stream of vehicles, both on duty and off, began to make the ascent up to the cabin as the fellowship that was the law enforcement profession congregated to search for Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo. One of their own was missing.

RFTDRFTD

Tony was resting his eyes but he could still hear the distant clomp-clopping of Abby's four inch high heeled platform boots that she favoured. How the hell can she traverse this terrain without breaking her neck let alone break a sweat, he thought distractedly? Suddenly, he started to panic when he realised that she was getting even further ahead of him and he was in danger of losing her again. He attempted to regain his feet again and sank back to the ground again as he was reminded in no uncertain terms that he had twisted his ankle.

_Come on Anthony, suck it up! It isn't always about you. Abby and Sonata need you to man up for once in your life. Don't let your father be right about you just this one time. Gibbs could do this and you could too if you had any guts._ Then, his pep-talk over, he began to crawl forward, propelling himself along with his arms and his good leg. His progress was painfully slow but he was still moving forward, nonetheless. His goal was to locate the road, and soon he heard another vehicle, possibly a SUV rocketing up the trail. He kept moving in the direction of the vehicle. _Just need to hold on a bit longer,_ he told himself.

RFTDRFTDRFTD

The Gordon cabin was becoming a hot spot of activity with police and federal agents swarming upon it. The interior and the immediate perimeter around it were cordoned off by crime scene tape as NCIS agents proceeded to process the scene, collecting evidence to try and confirm if Tony had been present or not and to preserve evidence of a suspected abduction. They were also hoping that there might be clues as to where the occupants had gone. It appeared, at first glance, that there had been two people there. Two sets of eating utensils. Two pillows on the bed showed indentations and different length and coloured hair on the pillow slips, also suggestive that at least two people were living there.

Gibbs, who was searching the exterior of the cabin, pausing periodically to call DiNozzo by name in case he was close by, heard his cell phone buzz. Pulling it out hoping for a new lead, he barked into the phone "Gibbs."

"It is Balboa, Gibbs. I've got something you will want to see in the cabin."

Gibbs hung up without bothering to reply, but his colleague just shrugged. Gibbs lack of phone etiquette was legendary at NCIS. Balboa put his phone back in his pocket and turned around to find Gibbs glaring at him impatiently.

He grunted at him while quirking one eyebrow which Balboa recognised was Gibbs' speak for, "whatcha got?" Gibbs wasn't known as the functional mute for no good reason.

Balboa led him over to a timber trunk which had been moved away from the wall. A hidden area under the floor board revealed a shoulder holster, an NCIS badge and ID, as well as a soft leather wallet. "They're Tony's," he said to the unspoken question that Gibbs had asked.

Gibbs grunted again before clapping him on the shoulder, "Good work Rocky. Pretty clear proof that Tony was not only here but was detained against his will. If he was here freely, he would carry his ID and wallet. I'll let you get back to it," and he strode out the door to inform the searchers that they were indeed looking for a Federal Agent.

It was time to get a serious search party organised. He also quickly informed his two agents that they were on the right track. McGee quickly called Abby's lab to update them on their limited success and then focused once again on searching, feeling more energised knowing that Tony had been here until very recently. _So close,_Gibbs reflected, _so damned close!_


	13. Chapter 13

Rating: M

Disclaimer: I don't own the original NCIS characters or profit from them.

Warning: This story contains potentially disturbing content including mental illness and sexual assault.

A/N This is the last chapter of this first story in this series. There is a short epilogue that I will also be uploading very soon. I have to once again give sincere thanks to Ibinkybella for being such a terrific Beta Reader during this story and wrestling it into shape. If you haven't checked out her stories, which seems unlikely I know, do check them out. You won't regret it. :)

Running From The Demons

Chapter 11

Tony was done. He was exhausted, hell he was _beyond_ exhausted if truth be told. His body was tottering on the brink, but still he crawled forward. While his body had reached the limit of its endurance quite a while back, his indomitable spirit and the deep seated need to protect others meant that there was a disconnect between body and soul. Every single inch that he covered as he crawled forward was a testament to the human spirit, and Tony's in particular. So even though the task seemed be insurmountable, he moved ever closer to where a steady stream of vehicles seemed to be traveling up the road. By the time he finally reached the road, the stream of cars had slackened off, so he rested beside the side of the road and hoped that his luck would hold out and a vehicle would pass by soon. He quickly dropped into a stupor, blissfully unaware of his surroundings.

Although he was usually acutely aware of his environment, he failed to notice the approach of a sheriff's car winding its way up the road, until it was almost too late. Thinking that he was going to miss his opportunity, with a herculean effort plus a huge dose of the adrenaline that surged driven by unadulterated panic, he managed to lurch to his feet. Without thinking he stepped out to stand in the middle of the road and stop the car.

Unfortunately, his perception was affected by his physical state. Tony somehow managed to time it so he stepped out right into the path of the oncoming law enforcement vehicle. Tony was clipped by the front fender and flipped through the air before bouncing over the hood of the car and coming to rest on the side of the road.

Tony remembered his mother reading him stories when he was small and Christopher Robin and his friends was his favourite. As he bounced off the front edge of the car before being flung into the air and colliding with first the car hood and then the road, he remembered Tigger the Bouncing Tiger. He couldn't help the rising hysteria that preceded him going into shock. _I'm not Tony,_ he thought giggling uncontrollably, _I'm Tigger and I bounce! _ The squeal of brakes and the red break lights from the car let him know that he had done what he set out to do. He had found help and now he had to tell them that Sona needed immediate assistance and Abby needed protecting.

A pale, shaken pair of deputies, one little more than a rookie, ran to his side, calling out to him to respond. Tony couldn't stop giggling about his new identity. Although he sometimes fantasized about being James Bond, he thought in his line of work with his propensity to attract trouble, being Tigger the Bouncing Tiger might save him some boring hospital admissions. Apart from which, who didn't like a bouncing tiger?

Tony was dimly aware at some level that maybe he might have a bit of a concussion. If he was this loopy before pain medication what would he be like after them? He knew he had to concentrate and deliver his message, so he tried hard to focus. Finally he reached up and gave himself a Gibbs slap to the back of his head, much to the astonishment of the cops. Tony couldn't help giggling at their expression. They wouldn't last a day with Gibbs!

"I need to... te... tell you some...thing impor... 'portant... vry... 'tant. Abbs ... Goth ...grl... works at NCIS not ... dys...lex...ic Abbs in dangr. Needs pro... tect. Tell Gibbsss. He can... save. Sona ne...eds help. Wh..eres Gibbs?"

Tony collapsed back on the road, spent. He was rapidly going into shock and also finding it increasingly difficult to breathe. Calling to the rookie to get an ambulance ASAP, the more senior deputy grabbed the first aid kit and a blanket from the trunk. Deputy Blackstone examined the man that he was almost certain was the Federal agent whose description had been circulated along with the BOLO for Sonata Gordon's car.

He asked Tony if he was Agent DiNozzo and he managed to force out "Ag...ent Ton...y Tigg...rrr," but the deputy discovered a large lump on the back of his head as well as numerous contusions. He decided that Tony was severely concussed, which probably explained his mental confusion, although it might also be due to shock or t he fact he was also exhibiting difficulty in breathing.

His ankle looked to be damaged and misshapen, possibly fractured. He also had some dodgy ribs and spectacular bruising over his chest and torso. He was quite emaciated and looked as if he could do with a few square meals. Apart from that, his clothes were filthy and ripped. His knees were raw and bleeding as were the palms of his hands and elbows. Clearly he had been crawling along for quite a distance, judging by his clothes and abrasions. Agent DiNozzo looked like he had been in a war zone and the rookie Deputy Tully gazed at Tony with equal awe and horror as the agent tried to pull air into his damaged lungs.

Blackstone looked over at Tully and called to him, "Get an ETA on the Medics, Tully. Tell them it's urgent. Better yet, find out about a Medivac chopper."

Tully used the radio and called back, "EMTs under three minutes out. Medivac ETA twelve minutes."

"Okay Tully, call the NCIS lead agent and tell him his guy found us and he is going to be in transit to the hospital in the next few minutes. I need to stay with him."

He watched as the agent seemed to be having increasing difficulty in breathing. Mindful of his shocky appearance, Deputy Blackstone took off his jacket and draped it over DiNozzo. He started talking to him trying to get him to remain conscious.

"Okay, Agent DiNozzo, try to calm down and stay with us. Help is on the way. My name is Blackstone by the way."

He sighed with relief as the EMT van pulled up and the paramedics burst forth with a flurry and swept him aside. He quickly explained that DiNozzo had stepped in front of their vehicle and described what happened. After a swift but quick examination they hooked him up with mask and oxygen, bundled him onto a gurney, wrapped him in thermal blankets and hustled him toward the van.

"Let's go, let's go! We'll start I.V. fluids en route."

"Can't you wait a few minutes? His team is just up the road and they're coming as we speak. He's a Fed and been missing for over seven weeks. He's been calling for his boss."

The paramedic shook her head decidedly. "He is going into shock, is dehydrated and already weak and emaciated. I suspect by his blood pressure he is bleeding internally. He will more than likely need surgery as soon as he can be stabilized." She looked at Blackstone and said," we can't wait."

Unbeknownst to the cop and the medic, DiNozzo had been following the conversation and he reached out a hand and grasped the cop by the wrist in a surprisingly iron death grip. He reached out with his other hand and pulled the mask down, somewhat more lucid with oxygen on board but still finding it difficult to speak. "Tell... Gibbs... protect... Abbs... pleeeaase?"

Blackstone was confused about why the fed wanted him to tell the lead agent to protect his abdominals but he, like most of the law enforcement community in DC and surrounding states, had heard about the infamous Gibbs gut so he nodded. "I'll be sure and pass that on, Agent DiNozzo. I'll see you soon at the hospital."

The EMT vehicle roared away from the scene with both siren and lights on, just as a homicidal maniac behind the wheel of a dark blue sedan, disguised as a federal agent aka Special Agent L. J. Gibbs appeared. He slammed on the brakes, pulling up with inches to spare between his car and the sheriff's vehicle.

"Where the hell is he? Why didn't you wait for me?" Gibbs snarled while his team mates piled out of the car both looking disappointed at not seeing their teammate and warily watching their feral boss.

Blackstone shook his head. "Couldn't wait Gibbs, he stepped in front of our car. Paramedics said he was bleeding internally and he was going into shock. Having trouble breathing too so they headed for the nearest hospital. Paramedics said they might need to Medivac him to a bigger hospital but I have a call in for a chopper which will probably be waiting on standby by the time he gets to the local hospital."

Gibbs eyes glinted dangerously and he grabbed the deputy by the shirt. "You ran my Agent down?"

His voice was low and menacing and Blackstone stared into Gibbs eyes and saw an endless abyss of cold fury. He decided that all the stories about Gibbs that he had dismissed as urban myths were probably correct, after all. He swallowed nervously, while Deputy Tully looked like he was about to crap his pants. His two agents grabbed Gibbs, encouraging him to let go and follow Tony to the hospital.

Deputy Blackstone stared at Gibbs and said quietly, "It was an accident, Agent Gibbs." Gibbs glared and turned on his heel and headed back to the car.

"Wait, Gibbs, your agent insisted that I give you a message. Doesn't make much sense but maybe it will to you. He said to protect your gut. Told us twice."

"Um, he didn't exactly say that, Stoney," interjected the Rookie. Tully looked terrified of Gibbs but he was in awe of the determination of the injured federal agent. McGee could see a hint of hero worship on the youngster's face and he smirked indulgently. He remembered how it was and how much he looked up to the more seasoned veterans when he first joined the famous MCRT.

"He said to tell Gibbs to protect his abs, his abdominals maybe? He also muttered something about a Goth Grill – could be a Bistro? And he said something about working at NCIS and being dyslexic." He finished, proud that he had recounted the whole message to the best of his ability. "And we really didn't mean to hit him, sir. We weren't going that fast. Oh and I forgot something. He said his name was Bouncing Tigger but that didn't make much sense either."

The agents all smiled despite the tension. They deciphered the garbled message from Tony – well except for the last bit, but then his brain just wasn't hardwired like anyone elses. It wasn't that unusual for people to not be able to follow the quantum leaps in thought that Tony performed, or his unique ability to see connections that mere mortals failed to. No one could even begin to see connection to a well known children's character. Now if it had been Batman or James Bond... maybe. Although, Gibbs remembered that Tigger had been one of Kelly's favourite's of all the A.A. Milne characters and he smiled inwardly, seeing similarities between the SFA and the exuberant tiger.

As they were speeding down the road, Ziva was on the phone to Abby to tell her to stay at NCIS until they could organize a protection detail. They could only surmise that Sonata Gordon might come after her, although they weren't sure why. McGee was also on the phone to Ducky, getting him to fax Tony's medical history to the local hospital and to make sure that Abby didn't come running to the hospital until she had protection. Tony had already been abducted, Gibbs was determined that it wouldn't happen to a second member of his dysfunctional de facto family. Meanwhile, Gibbs continued his manic driving down the road trying to catch up with Tony and the EMTs.

The whole of Team Gibbs was gathered at Bethesda, waiting for word from the doctors about Tony's condition. He had been initially stabilized at the smaller hospital, then air-lifted to the Naval hospital. He was currently in theater while surgeons tried to control his bleeding. As time went by, many of the cops and federal agents that had been involved in the search for him over the past seven weeks were drifting in to offer moral support for him and his teammates .

Ducky had been given some sketchy details, including his dehydration, loss of lean muscle mass and weight loss. There was evidence of a newly healed fractured clavicle and numerous injection sites on his body. They had sent blood out to determine what drugs he may have had in his system. They had found a subdural haematoma and broken ribs that led to a collapsed lung as well as torn ligaments in the ankle that had been sprained. He was also covered in bruises and contusions from apparently crawling a considerable distance. It was unclear what damage the broken ribs had caused at this stage but the internal bleeding was the most pressing problem.

Gibbs had arranged a protection detail for Abby when she wasn't at work, at least until DiNozzo was able to tell them exactly what the threat entailed. They were also setting up protective measures to guard Tony, mindful that Gordon worked at Bethesda and would know all the tricks to gain access to get to him if she wanted to. Now all they could do was wait.

Gibbs was getting in preliminary reports from the processing of the cabin, and several items in particular caught his attention. He was also co-ordinating the search for Sonata Gordon who was at this time, in the wind possibly, and probably armed with Tony's gun. As they waited for news, everyone was trying to understand why Gordon had abducted their friend and teammate, but until she was caught or Tony could report what had happened during the last seven plus weeks, they could only speculate.

**Six Hours Later**

Special Agent DiNozzo was lying unconscious in his hospital bed in a double room. The other bed was being reserved for his off duty protection team, as Gibbs had ordered them to stay with him 24/7, or for any of his teammates. He was determined that Tony always had someone with him for support, in addition to the protective agent on duty. Ducky stood beside the bed, studying Tony's medical chart while Gibbs paced manically around the room.

"So Duck, he gonna make it?" Gibbs demanded of his long time friend.

The surgeon had already given them a report following surgery but his waffling and jargon had started to piss Gibbs off and all he heard was "blah, blah, blah." Of course knowing that Ducky was at hand and would cut through all the crap and put it into plain English for him meant that he didn't try too hard to listen. Ducky thought it was a bit hypocritical of a guy whose job with NCIS was full of military and Naval jargon and a smorgasboard of anagrams and told him so, but then Jethro always was a mass of contradictions.

"Well Jethro, it is too soon to make a proper prognosis. They have drilled a burr hole to relieve pressure on his brain. He probably also has a fairly significant concussion based on the large egg shaped contusion on his temple. His lung was re-inflated and a chest tube inserted. If his respiration deteriorates he may need to be mechanically assisted to breathe while his lungs heal but you already know the score on that scenario. His tear to his spleen and liver has been repaired. He made it through surgery but that is only the first hurdle. We are still waiting on the tox screen to find out what drugs are in his system.

Then there is also the issue of infection. He has contusions covering at least thirty percent of his body and he was filthy when he was found. Crawling around as he appeared to have done for so long, meant that a lot of bacteria was allowed access to his body, so he will need IV antibiotics for it as well as a prophylactic for his surgeries. Due to his emaciated condition his immune system will be further compromised in addition to that which occurred when he contracted the plague. He will also need careful monitoring of his dietary needs. There is evidence of chronic inflammation of his oesophagus which suggests long term damage that may be caused by either a gastro-intestinal disorder or even an eating disorder, which given his dramatic weight loss cannot be ruled out," he said firmly, noting Gibbs's emphatic denial.

"He may need medically supervised re-introduction of foods for up to a week to reduce the risk of Re-feeding Syndrome. At this stage his electrolytes are all over the shop but whether it is due to his dehydration, being drugged, or because he has already developed Re-feeding Syndrome isn't clear yet. Because Re-feeding Syndrome can exacerbate breathing difficulties, he is going to need close medical supervision, so don't even think of helping him bust out of hospital Jethro." Ducky eyed Gibbs sternly.

"We will know more about his psychological and neurological status when he regains consciousness. And Jethro," Ducky cautioned seriously, "you need to tread very cautiously with Anthony when he first regains consciousness. I don't need to remind you that in his weakened state and possibly being drugged, he will have been at extreme risk for developing an emotional attachment with his abductor. You will recall that young Petty Officer that we rescued from the underground bunker? You know, the one that clocked Anthony across the head with the lamp base when he freed her? Well Anthony is even more vulnerable to the so called Stockholm Effect because he was already acquainted with his abductor."

"Come on Ducky, this is DiNozzo we're talking about here, not some civilian. He's a seasoned cop!"

"I am aware of that Jethro, but you must recall that even before his abduction he was emotionally disturbed by something. While you are both peas in a pod in many ways with your use of defence mechanisms and keeping others at an emotional distance, he is much more sensitive. He gets hurt easily but internalizes everything. Without breaking a confidence, he also has had significant factors beyond that of the average person that place him at risk for emotional manipulation. So as his doctor, you will go easy on him, or I will restrict your contact with him. And that goes for anyone else for that matter! Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

Gibbs glared at his friend and was about to argue angrily when they heard a moan from the bed. "Aghhh... Must save her... Sona... help her... Oh god... Have to protect... Abby... useless... weak... Abby ... why did you leave... Sona... sorry...so sorry." Even as he forced himself to speak, his right hand was in constant movement, as he wiped it continuously against the bedclothes as if he had something sticky on his hand that he was attempting to remove.

Ducky's brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of what was said. As Tony continued to ramble about Abby and Sona, Ducky told Gibbs to bring Abby in, to see if she could reassure him. If he didn't calm down, they would be forced to sedate him to stop him harming himself, but with respiratory issues and multiple head injuries, this would be a last resort and Ducky definitely didn't want anyone to suggest the use of restraints.

Gibbs returned to the room with Abby in tow. She was shocked to hear Tony's rambling about Sona but when she heard him brokenly calling out her name, asking her why she left and apologizing for not protecting her, she began crying. She carefully clasped his hand and kissed his cheek as she crooned to him. "It okay Tony, I'm safe. I would never leave you and you protect me all the time. You watch out for me when we go clubbing together and check out all my boyfriends after that whack job Michael and you saved me when Ari tried to shoot me and you hug me when I'm sad or worried. Ow!" she glared at Gibbs who had poked her in the ribs.

"Take a breath Abbs, before you fall over," he smirked, amused in spite of the situation. She was such a motor mouth!

"Jethro, look! He is responding to Abigail. Keep on working your magic on Anthony, my dear. You're better at soothing him right now than the most powerful narcotics. I have a strong feeling that it is because of you he found the strength to escape. Keep reminding him that you are safe and so is he." Ducky smiled at his three favourite people.

Abby smiled, pleased that she was able to do something to help her best friend. Then she wrinkled her brow in the way that Tony found so beguiling.

"Why is Tony so upset about 'that' woman? She abducted him and kept him captive all these weeks and we didn't even know if he was alive or not. She ran him off the road, the crazy chick! She is a snake, a total cow. Tony should hate her!" she stamped her platform boot-clad foot in anger and frustration. Tony whimpered "Sona... so sorry... Gibbs help her... my fault...sorry...screwed up."

Ducky frowned and said to Gibbs and Abby, "Now I want you both to listen very carefully to me! I know that you are both angry with 'that' woman as you call her, but for some reason Tony seems to feel that she needs his help and he feels responsible. Goodness me, I shouldn't have to tell either one of you about Anthony's propensity to feel responsible for all the ills of the world, even when he had no control over what happened. I also know and so should you, that Anthony, despite his upbringing, is a nurturer and protector of those he calls friends and would do anything to help them. Abby, you told me how grateful he was for Sonata's kindness, so she has become someone he looks out for.

I'm not saying that it is right, given the circumstances, or that it is even healthy for him to feel responsible for her but it is a part of who he is. If you care about his recovery, then you have to trust me and tread very carefully when it comes to speaking about her. Don't talk; just listen to what he tells you until we figure out what happened to him and what he remembers. He could easily have memory loss if he suffered a head injury, as we suspected, when he was abducted.

But if you cannot control your emotions you may push Anthony away or even hinder his recovery. You're investigators so...investigate... gather evidence... find out what went on during those missing weeks. Then we will know what is needed to help our young friend."

Epilogue to follow soon :)


	14. Chapter 14

Rating: M

Disclaimer: They aren't mine

Warning: This story has content that is potentially disturbing including mental illness and sexual assault.

A/N This chapter was beta'd by Ibinkybella who has been a huge support though out this story. Any remaining mistakes are my bad :) Thanks to everyone who took the time to review and alert for this story.

Running From The Demons

Epilogue

Tony was hurting. He felt as if someone had drilled a hole in his head. No, really. His head hurt and he didn't want to open his eyes because experience taught him that with a concussion of this magnitude he was extremely light sensitive. His chest hurt too, broken ribs he concluded, sadly recognizing the signs, although his lungs also hurt like when he had pneumonia. His left ankle was sore but not in a cast, so not broken. He had sharp pain in his abdomen with the all too familiar pull of stitches or staples, he wasn't sure which. Apart from all that, every square inch of him ached and he was so exhausted he barely had enough energy to breathe.

His acute sense of smell detected a familiar scent of coffee combined with essential oils from various hardwoods. He was simply too tired and hurting too badly to try and open his eyes, although at some level he knew that the scent was someone who was important to him. It made him feel safe. So he lay there, simply trying to breathe, which wasn't easy because it hurt. It hurt a lot, but he was used to pain. Lived with it his whole life so he should be good at enduring it

There was something that he needed to do or say. Something that kept nagging at him when all he wanted was to breathe and, well, sleep, so he didn't notice how hard it was to breathe. But he couldn't remember what it was. He knew he had been on a mission but what the hell had he been doing and how did he end up in the hospital? It was important, whatever it was but he couldn't remember, damn it! He heard someone enter the room and picked up the familiar aroma of very strong paint stripping coffee.

"Here you go, Jethro, hot, strong and black; just how you like it," said a low and sexy voice that was clearly flirting with..._ oh my God, Jethro? His boss!"_

"How is Agent DiNozzo doing? I'm glad you managed to find him. Is there any word yet on Sonata?"

Tony lazily followed the conversation but at the mention of Sona's name, everything came flooding back and he felt like someone had stomped on his gut and sat on his chest so he couldn't breathe. He knew that he needed to make sure that they were both safe. He forced his glassy green eyes wide and moaned.

"Boss; save Sona. She needs help and Abby needs to be protected from Sona. She might hurt her. Oh God it's all my fault. What have I done?"

"Abby is safe, Tony, you saved her and we won't let anything bad happen to her. She's safe, Abby's here. She went down to the cafeteria with Ducky." Gibbs spoke soothingly.

"Sona?" he asked his voice hopeful.

Gibbs shook his head. "She was already gone when we got to the cabin Tony. We're looking for her but so far no luck."

DiNozzo moaned agonizingly as he collapsed into a defeated heap in the bed. He'd failed to save Sona. He couldn't even carry out the simplest of missions and once more he'd hurt someone who cared about him. Someone who had tried to help him just as his father had predicted so many years ago.

"We have to find her Gibbs, please." He saw the momentary flicker of anger in Gibbs's eyes and assumed his boss was mad at him for running away.

"I know you're angry with me for falling asleep and crashing my car. I should have listened to the doctors at the hospital and not left AMA and I should never, ever have gone to Sona for help instead of you. God knows I will regret that for the rest of my hopefully short life but Sona is sick and she needs help. She needs professional help and it's my fault. We-have- to-find-her-now."

His boss gently grasped Tony's shoulder and squeezed it. "We'll find her, Tony, and don't worry, you're safe now. Everything will be... fine."

Tony tried to maintain his perpetual mask of optimism and cockiness but he didn't have the strength to pretend any more. He didn't realise it but it was possible for anyone to see all the desolation and self-loathing that he felt but could no longer hide. Then Tony gave a feral grin that seemed to scare the crap out of Gibbs. Tony knew that Gibbs was wrong. He wasn't safe, how could he ever be safe from himself? If something happened to Sona he could never go on living.

HRHRHRHRHR

Gibbs sat watching his agent attempting to swim his way back to consciousness, as he threw off the after effects of his surgery. He almost couldn't believe that they had finally found Tony or that he was safe again after almost two whole months. Yet here he was, lying in the bed close enough for him to touch and so he did. He told himself that it was merely because he needed convincing that this wasn't just a dream, that he needed to feel his warmth and steady heart beat in order to convince himself that it was real.

Now they could focus on his recovery and he would soon be back at NCIS, watching out for the team and having Gibbs' six once more. The team had been lost without its senior field agent and they all came to appreciate just how much they depended upon him, not just for the big stuff but in hundreds of small ways that no one ever thought about or ever acknowledged.

Luckily, Tony was resilient and he would bounce back again and soon be back at work. He always rebounded before and Gibbs knew that this time would be the same. DiNozzo didn't know the meaning of the word surrender and he would be demanding to return to work in a day or two at most. Not that he would allow it, of course. Gibbs refused to listen to the churning in his gut, so he pushed aside the doubts, Tony's emaciated condition and Ducky's suspicions that he had an eating disorder. He also refused to consider Ducky's warning that DiNozzo might have been affected by Stockholm Syndrome. Tony would be fine, he always was and this time would be no different.

Gibbs heard someone enter the room and picked up the familiar aroma of very strong paint stripping coffee. It was manna from heaven and he turned to see his favourite nurse Martha Williams carrying in a huge mug of his drug of choice. He smiled at her, his normally arctic blue eyes twinkling appreciatively.

"Here you go, Jethro, hot, strong and black; just how you like it," she said a low and sexy voice that was clearly flirty. "How is Agent DiNozzo doing? I'm glad you managed to find him. Is there any word yet on Sonata?"

Gibbs frowned warningly at her and silently shook his head. He knew his friend was coming round, so knowing he couldn't discuss that woman without blowing up, he wasn't going to say anything that might upset Tony. He had promised Ducky he wouldn't. It was too late though, it appeared that Tony had heard the comments from Sonata Gordon's supervisor and began to panic. He found himself looking into a pair of unfocused, green eyes, pupils still dilated, proof positive that Tony was coping with a nasty concussion on top of all his other woes.

"Boss; save Sona. She needs help and Abby needs to be protected from Sona. She might hurt her. Oh God it's all my fault. What have I done?"

Gibbs, forewarned by Ducky and on pain of death that he listen to what Tony needed to say, heard the pain and need in his words and voice. He gently approached the bed and said softly, "Abby is safe, Tony, you saved her and we won't let anything bad happen to her. She's safe, Abby's here. She went down to the cafeteria with Ducky." Gibbs saw relief in his eyes.

"Sona?" he asked his voice hopeful.

Gibbs shook his head. "She was already gone when we got to the cabin Tony. We're looking for her but so far no luck."

DiNozzo moaned agonizingly and slumped lower in the bed. "We have to find her Gibbs, please." He must have seen the momentary flicker of anger in Gibbs's eyes and immediately assumed that his boss was angry with him and started pleading with him.

"I know you're are angry with me for falling asleep and crashing my car. I should have listened to the doctors at the hospital and not left AMA and I should never, ever have gone to Sona for help instead of you. God knows I will regret that for the rest of my hopefully short life but Sona is sick and she needs help. She needs professional help and it's my fault. We-have- to-find-her-now."

Gibbs was stunned which was a pretty rare occurrence, but he realized that Ducky was right as usual. Tony had no memory of the abduction and thought he had turned away from his friends. Gordon had played him and he was fractured. Gibbs heard the despair in his voice and he didn't miss the comment about his life expectancy, either. Functional mute that he was, he was at a loss as to what to say, but he had to say something.

He gently grasped Tony's shoulder and squeezed it. "We'll find her, Tony, and don't worry, you're safe now. Everything will be... fine."

Gibbs looked into his Senior Field Agents eyes and saw they were naked, free of the mask that he usually donned and he saw desolation and self-loathing there. Then Tony gave a feral grin that scared the crap out of Gibbs.

Gibbs felt the hair stand up on his neck and his famous gut started churning. And what was with his hand anyway? Now that he was awake, Tony couldn't seem to stop rubbing his hand constantly against the sheets as if it had something on it that he was trying to wipe away, even if he didn't seem aware of what he was doing. It was downright creepy and made Gibbs' skin crawl even as he tried to ignore all the non verbal cues that his body seemed to be picking up on.

He knew that they had managed to find DiNozzo, but the question remained, would Tony be able find himself again?

A/N Well that is it for the first of the Demon trilogy. I know that many questions remain yet to be answered, especially one particularly huge elephant in the room but this first piece was always going to pose more questions than answers. Many of which will be revealed as Tony begins to put the puzzle pieces together about what happened to him and then try to come to terms with it. At the moment, Tony and Sona are the only two people that know exactly what happened and until Sona is apprehended or Tony is fit to talk, his colleagues remain in the dark about his ordeal along with the readers. So I hope that you can deal with the cliffhanger and hope to see you for Dancing With The Demons. Thanks for reading!

Adieu for now

SASundance :)


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